by IIsa J. Bick
Magnusson-Talbot began rooting around her desk. “And your point?” she growled, fishing out a crumpled pack, knocking out a smoke, jamming it into her mouth, then flicking a match to life with her thumbnail. “You’ve got a point, right?” she repeated, squinting through a curl of blue smoke.
“Always.” Coleman inched back a discreet distance but knew that, by the end of the interview, he’d smell like a bar at three A.M., minus the booze. “But The Republic’s fighting on many fronts. The Capellans on one side, the Falcons storming through IX and currently on Skye, and now the Dracs practically knocking on our front door. It’s not exactly as if we have an overwhelming force at our disposal.”
Magnusson-Talbot snorted out twin streamers, like a dragon. “Don’t remind me. We’re up to our elbows in manure. No way I’ve got troops to spare, and the rest of the prefecture, hell, it’s up for grabs. But I’ll tell you one thing.” She sucked smoke, and then continued, words punctuated by tiny puffs. “Dieron, that’s the key. That’s where they’re going, the sons of bitches.”
“But they won’t stop there. I wouldn’t. It’s short-sighted. Yeah, sure, so you take back what you lost, but if you really want to cripple The Republic? Take Terra. We’re to The Republic is what Luthien is to the Dracs. The best way to stop the Dracs is to keep Dieron from them. Do that, they’ll flat out stop. They might even retreat.”
“You’re dreaming, son. Still . . .” Magnusson-Talbot stroked her chin with her thumb, cigarette and its drooping tube of ash pinched between first and second finger. Then she took aim again, this time with the two fingers scissored around her smoke. “Good point,” she said, flicking the cigarette hard enough to knock off ash. “All right, we’ll consolidate our forces along the border with Prefecture II. Wish we could do something for those poor souls in harm’s way, but there’s no help for it. I’ll get word to Prefecture I about what’s going on. See what they can do from their end. Maybe hack into the Dracs’ flank from Dyev and Asta, cut our losses. Question is, will it work?”
“You want honesty or the party line?”
Magnusson-Talbot barked a wheezy laugh. “I want party line, I can spend time with any number of kiss-ass sycophants. Politicians’re like fleas. By the time you know they’ve bit you, there’s a damn feeding frenzy going on.”
“Okay,” said Coleman. “Then I think we’re going to get our butts kicked.”
“Yeah, so do I.” Rising, Magnusson-Talbot stabbed out her cigarette. “You drink?” she asked, jetting smoke.
“When there’s an occasion.”
“Son, there’s always an occasion.” The general tugged open a desk drawer, withdrew a bottle half full of amber liquid, and two crystal glasses. She splashed a liberal amount into each glass, handed one to Coleman.
The bourbon fumes were so strong Coleman’s eyes watered. “What shall we drink to?”
“Survival.”
“That’s it?”
“Hell, son.” Magnusson-Talbot knocked back her drink, inhaled against the burn through her teeth. “We survive? It’ll be a goddamned miracle.”
29
Scarborough Manufacturers, Al Na’ir
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
15 July 3135
Three days after Phoenix fell, Worridge had suited up and gone tramping through what remained of a city that had once been home to over thirty million souls: tangled skeins of steel and concrete poking at odd angles through a dense smog layer of sulfur dioxide and methane; sidewalks and sewers choked with the bodies of literally millions of animals and insects that crunched and squelched underfoot. And there were people: in mounds, struck down in mid-run, locked in a last embrace. The bloated corpses were rotting, green veins worming through skin and black purge fluid coursing from nose, mouth and ears.
Worridge didn’t know why she chose the park. Maybe she thought the park would be soothing. It wasn’t. The trees were denuded, the grass a desert brown, and the artery of a river that had flowed through the park’s heart was choked with a silver mat of dead fish.
That’s where she found them, at the river’s edge; a mother and daughter; the girl’s arms clasped around her mother’s neck and the mother hugging the child to her breast. The girl had blond curls matted flat with dried blood that had boiled out of the mother’s mouth. Mercifully, their eyes were closed. They lay on their sides atop a blue blanket. The remains of their last meal, sandwiches and, maybe, potato salad, had been reduced to a sludgy mess.
Now, Worridge pushed food around in her blue-and-white ceramic bowl before pinching a beet-red sliver of braised burdock between her chopsticks. Normally, she enjoyed Kinpira-goba, but the limp strip of vegetable resembled a piece of raw liver—no, no, more the rusted blood caked onto the girl’s head.
A voice, male, a little slurry around the edges: “Something bothering you, Worridge?”
She looked up to lock eyes with Sakamoto, who sat opposite across an expanse of low table loaded with dishes. Sakamoto always ate well the evening before a campaign, and tonight was no exception. A myriad of delicacies littered the table. He was chewing with gusto, and she was suddenly repulsed. Replacing the braised vegetable in her bowl, she laid her chopsticks on their rest and folded her hands in her lap. “Tai-shu, I think the time is right for us . . . for you to discuss our future plans with the coordinator.”
“Bah,” said Sakamoto around rice. “We don’t have the time, Worridge. Even if I had the JumpShips to spare, by the time word reached Luthien and the coordinator devoted any energy to the task, The Republic could marshal its forces and mount an effective resistance. I won’t be hampered, waiting for word to dribble back.”
“Nevertheless, our duty . . .”
“Our duty,” said Sakamoto, with sudden energy, “is to restore glory to the Combine. That is the oath we’ve sworn, Tai-sho. What, having an attack of conscience?”
Worridge’s cheeks flamed. “If you mean, am I appalled at the extent of the destruction and loss of life we’ve dealt in pursuit of our glory . . . yes. It’s true that I did not grow up in a time of war and bloodshed, and until very recently, I was naive, if that makes any sense. It’s one thing to watch history on a holovid; it’s another to make history, and that’s what we’re doing now. But how will history judge us?”
“History’s written by winners, Worridge,” said Sakamoto. “And that’s us.”
So far. She opened her mouth to continue, but the door parted down the middle, and two corporals bustled in to remove dishes and set a tray of sweets before the warlord. She watched Sakamoto select a green-and-red sweet bean pastry shaped like a miniature lotus and pop it into his mouth.
“Excellent,” he said, his words a little gluey. He chewed, swallowed, groaned. “These are superb,” he said, fingering up an emerald green coil molded into a serpent.
One corporal said, “It’s the new pastry chef from Yance, Tai-shu. He said he’d thought he’d experiment.”
“Did he?” Sakamoto bit off the serpent’s head. “Bring him.”
“Tai-shu,” said Worridge, a little impatiently now, as the corporals left. How could the man gorge on sweets at a time like this, when they were about to embark on yet another attack wave—their fourth, who’d have thought they’d come this far—and still had not secured the coordinator’s blessing? “Before we . . .”
He silenced her with a cut of the hand. “We leave at first light. I intend to join forces en route to Saffel, and this time I’ll stretch my legs, and those of my ’Mech. Oh, and”—he pinched up another pastry—“I’m leaving the Fury survivors behind.”
She was startled. Sakamoto had executed all the Fury except for the swarthy chu-sa and a few of his comrades. Worridge supposed the chu-sa had cooperated in some way, but why leave them? “What for?”
“Expediency. I don’t want to drag prisoners around. And, really, where could they run? The only one we’ll take is that infernal old knight.”
“But . . . but they could signal . . .”
&n
bsp; “Who? How? There’s no HPG here, and no one out there to hear. The only inhabitable spot on the planet is Homai-Zaki, but we have forces there.”
“And if the Fury seeks reprisals, our people will be as vulnerable as . . .”
“I’ve made my decision, Tai-sho. Now”—Sakamoto picked up another sweet—“you must have some duty that awaits you somewhere.”
Surprise followed by rage bulleted through Worridge, and when she glanced down at her hands, she saw they were shaking. How dare he . . . ? Patience. This isn’t the time. But soon; I have to do something about this madness . . . Worridge folded her napkin and pushed up. Bowing, she left without another word.
Sakamoto waited until the door hissed shut, then jabbed a call button. “Bring me the Fury chu-sa.”
Fusilli was marched in five minutes later. Sakamoto waited until the guard had left. Then he said, “You’ll understand if I don’t invite you to join me for a drink.”
“Uh-hunh,” said Fusilli. His eyes were bloodshot; his normally swarthy skin peaked, and his clothes gave off a sour, rancid odor. After their first meeting, Sakamoto had made sure Fusilli suffered the same deprivations as the rest. With Magruder dead, the survivors would look to the highest-ranking officer for guidance and support.
Swirling the wine in his goblet, Sakamoto drank, smacked his lips, then said, “We leave tomorrow. You and your people will remain with the estimable Governor Tormark.”
“What?” Fusilli jerked out of his apathy. “What are you talking about? Our deal . . .”
“Our deal was your life in exchange for information. Your people would wonder why I took you hostage. The old knight, they’ll credit that, but a governor from a poisonous rock, and a measly chu-sa? They’ll wonder why. But if you stay behind and your people show up . . .”
“That’s a hell of a lot of ifs.”
“Homai-Zaki’s occupation force will be skeletal. If Governor Tormark has an inch of intelligence, he will plot his return. On the other hand, if he’s your typical politician, then you will plot it for him, and be a hero. And if Katana Tormark is still alive . . .”
“I thought your men on Klathandu IV . . .”
Sakamoto talked over him. “Are very quiet. All I’ve got are rumors too bizarre to credit. So if she’s still alive, I need you in her camp. How better to restore you to her good graces than to stage a daring escape? Go one better: Tell her where to find that pottering fool, Eriksson. She’s weak as a kitten about that old man.”
“What if she doesn’t come after you?”
Sakamoto gave a smile that was almost beatific. “Katana Tormark will come. She’ll come, and then I’ll want you . . .” He broke off as the doors hissed open.
A man stepped into the room. He wore a chef’s uniform: white apron, white trousers and crewneck tee. The man was well built, with muscles that strained the sleeves of his tee and a broad torso that tapered in a V to a thin waist and finely shaped thighs. The chef limped, favoring his right leg, and as he came to attention, Sakamoto spotted a most interesting scar, jagged as a lightning bolt, bisecting the outer third of the man’s left eyebrow and licking down his cheek. “Shujin Jack Nanashi, Second Benjamin Regulars,” he said, with a thick Cockney twang. “They said you . . .” He paused and his eyes, as icy gray as frosted pearls, slid to Fusilli, who was staring at the shujin with blatant curiosity.
“Speak freely,” said Sakamoto. “You made these?”
“Them sweet cakes and such? Yes, sir.”
“Well, they’re excellent. Where are you from, Shujin Nanashi?”
“I came in on the wave from Yance, got me a little nicked.” Nanashi fingered the scar knifing his eyebrow and cheek. “Weird, you ask me; who shoots a cook? Anyway, seems word spread about how’s I can whip up a mean Kushi-dango and . . .”
“Indeed?” Saliva pooled in the floor of Sakamoto’s mouth as he thought of skewers of steaming rice dumplings dipped in sweet, honey-colored sauce. “Tell me, can you make Kuri-kinton?”
“A few Satsuma-imo, some a them little sweet potatoes, and I promise, Tai-shu, that my Kushi-dango?” Nanashi grinned. “To die for.”
30
Kafa Island, Batambu Chain, Deneb Algedi
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
25 July 3135
There was this really old joke about Hell and Deneb Algedi. Seventh Legion of Vega Air Command Chu-sa Valerie Hines thought the punch line went something like blah-blah, blah-blah, and it’s not the humidity; it’s the heat. Or something like that. From where she sat, Command and Control in a Crow Scout helicopter, if Deneb Algedi had a hell, Kafa Island was certainly in the running: an immense, jagged volcanic caldera worn by time into ridges of coppery red basalt, hummocks of sand dunes, canyons gouged out of rock, and blistering heat intense enough to melt rubber. Just about the only things native to the island were those damn scaly nayaraptors, thick as mosquitoes come sunset, when they flocked out of their roosts to fish for Kafa gold tuna. The reptiles reminded Hines of bats; no, pterodactyls. Same shape, big teeth, curled talons, six-meter wingspan, wicked fast, blessedly nocturnal.
Midday now, fiery yellow sun high ahead, glare bright enough to blind, so they wouldn’t have to worry about raptors. What they had to worry about was getting tagged by some trigger-happy planetary guard slinging an SRM, maybe, or an RPG.
And, of course, there was the sand; you couldn’t forget about the damned killer sand. Hines cut her eyes right to her three o’clock and a blast crater that hadn’t been there two weeks ago, and to the twisted hulk of the DropShip. The ship was a gutted, twisted skeleton of titanium and ferrosteel lying in a scalloped trough of sand rimmed with a crust of flash-glass dyed rust red. Base camp was thirty klicks south of the crash site, but still, she’d heard the ship before she’d seen it: a guttering roar louder than the scream of the sandstorm, followed by a dark hulk bulleting through pillows of swirling sand, orange flames shooting from the tail like a meteor. They’d felt the impact, too, a seismic shake and shudder that rattled Quonsets and vibrated bone. No survivors, and near as they could figure, the ship crashed because of sand, wind, heat—and really, really lousy luck.
Luck. Hines’ lips compressed to a thin line. Yeah, right. Deneb Algedi was some kind of mutually exclusive thingamabob when it came to luck. First, the DropShip; then their ’Mechs, frozen in their tracks by scorching heat, one of those ironic oxymorons Hines could do without; intake valves on their people movers clogged with sand; and their infantry down to quarter-strength after getting cooked in their battlearmor. Oh, yeah, and then that one lonely little Republic JES II had made hamburger out of two Lucifers before the lead pilot plowed into the thing and set off the remaining missiles in its rack in a series of big and bigger: bah-bah-BAH-BOOM.
Finally, someone in Vegan Air Command wised up. Like, hey, don’t we have, you know, a couple helicopters just kind of lying around, doing nothing? Hines and her guys had ponied right on up: a regular eagles’ flight of six Donars and two Balac Strike VTOLs, and her running C2 in the Crow. Frigging about time: Her chopper jocks were pretty sick and tired of stewing in metal huts, swilling warm beer, and crapping out at five-card stud.
A crackle, then the pilot: “Ten o’clock.”
The chopper’s polarized windscreen was scored with hash marks left by blowing sand and Hines had to work before she spotted them; streamers of churning red sand heading for a cleft of deep gorge and winding arroyos.
“Roger that. Bring us around,” she said, and then, as the pilot did a looping one eighty, she got on the horn to the lead Donar. “Mad Max Four, this is C2. Confirm contact, four Demon Mediums and two SM1s bearing twenty-five degrees west by northwest true.”
“C2, copy that,” the Mad Max Four pilot came back. “We are ten klicks from your position, angels three. They still heading for that canyon?”
“That’s an affirmative. Give ’em another three, four minutes, and it’s a cakewalk,” said Hines, her voice jittering with the bump and skid of the Crow. Stupi
d strategy. Whoever was the brains behind the outfit, the guy leading that tank column, he’d just sacrificed his one advantage. There were ten commandments chopper pilots lived by, things like: He that leteth his tail rotor to snag the thorns shall surely kiss his sorry ass good-bye. But the big problem with helicopter assaults over open terrain boiled down to this: line of sight. Helicopters were terrific where there was dense ground cover, lousy when it came to wide open spaces because then copters got clobbered. But once those tanks got themselves boxed in by the gorge’s high walls, they’d have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. All her people had to do was watch their altitude and stay out of range of those SM1s; the rest was like popping tin cans with a pellet gun. “Mad Max Four, you are go for Charlie.”
“Roger Charlie,” the Mad Max Four pilot said, and then relayed the command to his strike force. “This is Mad Max Four to all units. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.”
Roger Charlie. Hines listened as the other pilots acknowledged the signal and then watched as the choppers slewed down into an attack wedge. Go get ’em, boys. Rock and roll.
Fifty-eighth Tank Battalion, Deneb Algedi Planetary Guard
Kafa Island, Batambu Chain, Deneb Algedi
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
25 July 3135
They were the last ones into the gorge, and just in the nick of time. As his Demon rumbled onto what was left of the river, a rocky, sand-choked avenue that curled for twenty klicks before dropping into a scalloped depression that had once been a lake but was now solid red basalt, Major Frank McGinnis stood in the open tank hatch and heard the mosquito whine of a helicopter. Right on time. Spied the turquoise body of the Crow hovering way the hell up there. Figured the Crow for recon, cavalry right behind.
For the first time all day McGinnis thought that, all things considered, things were definitely looking up. Hotter ’n hell, of course. McGinnis wiped sweat from his face; sweat leaked down his back, soaking his desert camis. McGinnis’ eyes skittered along the walls of the gorge, dun-colored strata of pulverized rock burped into the atmosphere, then silted down and compressed. Time and water had done the rest, knifing out a wedge before the planet’s last millennial drought. But what interested McGinnis were the holes, a third of the way down, pocking the rock like Swiss cheese.
