by John Lumpkin
“Actually, I’ve been divorced for nine years,” Donovan said. They know quite a bit, but not everything. If Donovan got out of here, he would have to tell his superiors. It would probably mean a desk job; he was too well-known to serve in the field again.
Li nodded and entered something on his handheld. “I am told the job takes a high toll on marriages.”
Donovan said nothing. He wondered if recordings of this session would be used as propaganda.
“Now, please tell me your mission on Commonwealth and Entente,” Li said.
Donovan had been prepared for this. He began lying.
Two hours later, Li Xiao had Donovan returned to his cell. He had learned little that he could believe, but Donovan’s willingness to talk was a sign he was making headway. It was also clear Donovan was wholly unaware of Li Xiao’s activities since the shootout in Graypen.
He returned to his office and brooded. He would have liked to talk with Khenbish, but she was leading a counterinsurgency patrol in the ranchlands and wouldn’t be back for several days.
He didn’t yet have Donovan subverted; the man’s connection to reality was strong. Li would keep pumping images into his brain until it couldn’t tell true from false. At some point Donovan would break, would identify NSS officers across the stars and anyone in the Chinese government working with them. It would take time, but the human mind was pliable, and Li knew how to work with it.
After breaking down Donovan, Li would kill him. The anticipation pleased him greatly.
Neil scrolled down the long list of insurgent groups in Sequoia provided by Vincennes’ intelligence unit – it was long, far longer than he would have expected. Each was identified with a codename, strength and capability estimate, area of operation, date of last contact, and any notes the techs on Vincennes thought worthwhile. Neil culled the list down for operatives in the Cottonwood area, then for those who weren’t combat-capable. He didn’t need ranchers and librarians trying to help him run an assault.
That left about a dozen groups, most of them small U.S. Army units. One had a note – a Cottonwood County Sheriff’s deputy was operating with them. That might be useful. He opened the file, and then his eyes widened in surprise.
From news reports Rand had gathered the American fleet had been clobbered, and for the first time he seriously considered surrendering to the Hans. What stopped him was the fear that they knew who he was, and would have him shot as a terrorist, but his band of guerillas was low on food, and there were fewer and fewer Americans in the countryside to support them. Chinese colonists were already moving in to some of the ranches.
They were staying in yet another abandoned ranch house, this one far from Cottonwood, with its own solar array and therefore off the grid. They kept the lights off at night to avoid catching the eye of any Chinese patrols.
Any semblance of military order was gone. They only had a few magazines left for their rifles. They grew idle, and Rand was out of ideas on how to continue hitting the Hans without losing the few people he had left. Sergeant Aguirre, who had tried to keep the discipline together more than anyone, started sharing a bedroom with PFC Rachel Lopez. Rand wondered what Torren would say if he proposed a similar arrangement with her.
She’d either accept, or punch him. Wasn’t much middle ground with her. But it was all hypothetical – for the first time since puberty, Rand found he wasn’t particularly interested in sexual adventure. Maybe guerrilla warfare is just that engrossing, he thought. That, or it’s a vitamin deficiency.
Every day, Aguirre and Lopez set up the communications rig and pointed its receiver at the wormhole back to American space. It had been three weeks since they had been in contact with the American fleet.
Today, though, a message came through.
FRIENDLIES COMING TO MEET YOU FOR A TOUR OF LOCAL FACILITIES.
Following the line were some coordinates, a range of times and a recognition code. They would have to leave tomorrow to make it on foot.
“Think it could be another trap?” Torren asked later.
“I don’t know. But might as well find out.”
Deputy Rebecca Torren looked at him dubiously, but for once didn’t argue.
San Jacinto, Bayandor and Swiftsure did their part. The American and Iranian vessels shot up the escorts, and Swiftsure’s guns ripped the tanker’s fuel pods open to space. The British destroyer took a hit amidships from the long-range laser of the Zhou Man, one of the vessels drawn away from Kuan Yin by the raid, but she remained operational. The three ships fled from the hit-and-run together, and the Chinese missiles chasing them fell short.
Fremantle, meanwhile, was drawing attention from the planet. Orbiting Kuan Yin was a light cruiser, a mauled Korean frigate and a corvette no larger than the Dextrous. Advantage, Fremantle: The Australian could outpace the cruiser and reach the planet without ever coming in range of the heavier ship’s weapons. The corvette, meanwhile, was speedy enough to intercept the Australian frigate, but it was woefully underarmed. The frigate was in no condition to challenge them.
As they approached, Fremantle flipped and rolled several times, adjusting its point of entry to Kuan Yin’s upper orbit. The cruiser and corvette began maneuvering in orbit as well, in an attempt to catch the invader frigate as it drew in range.
For two days, everyone aboard endured jarring changes in weight, like a battle, but over a much longer period. The crew grew tired and snappish; it was hard to remain asleep when your body goes from five kilos to thirty and back again in the space of an hour.
But Commander Boyd was a skilled master; he set up a vector that suggested the ship was going on a bombardment run over the largest inhabited Chinese continent on the planet. It would be foolhardy to do so; the PLA had a number of surface-to-orbit lasers that could blast Fremantle from its sky. But the Hans reacted all the same – probably ordered to by some nervous commander on the surface – and when Fremantle hit the top of Kuan Yin’s atmosphere only the Chinese corvette had a chance to catch up to it.
The frigate cut deep into the planet’s sky, bleeding off speed as the hull heated. The vessel shuddered; Neil, sitting in the back of one of Fremantle’s dropships, had a sudden, irrational fear she would come apart.
He had said farewell to Tom thirty minutes before; his friend was a last-minute scratch from the mission. Davis had cut him out of concerns the dropships wouldn’t be able to carry Donovan, Sun Haisheng and his entire entourage back to Fremantle – if they found them all. Tom took the news with equanimity, but he was obviously disappointed. Neil could guess at his emotions: a slight, involuntary sense of relief, overwhelmed by shame for feeling so.
They were diving into the dragon’s maw. Two dropships, 25 people, including Sanchez’s Marines and a squad of Australian Pathfinders, would make the drop. The shuddering slackened, signaling Fremantle had finished its deceleration skip off Kuan Yin’s atmosphere and was back in space. The warship tracked several objects in nearby orbits, categorized some of them as spy satellites, and shot them.
The dropship bay doors separated, and two craft plunged into the planet’s all-too-short night. Within an hour, the ocean spread before them, black in the darkness, save for glints of moonlight reflecting in the waves racing by. They descended; they decelerated; they extended skis and touched down. After slowing further, the dropships settled into the water and stopped, their engines still running.
They were as close to the Sequoia coast as they could safely be, and Fremantle reported combat drones were coming, but they had time. Neil wished the pilot good luck and ducked into the back of the dropship.
Everyone was stripping down to shorts and t-shirts. The side hatch was already open; the Marines were throwing packs into the water. The air coming inside was thicker and heavier than anything he had ever encountered. Neil tried to calm his mind. This is crazy. I thought of this, and even I think it’s crazy.
Adrenaline running high, Maria Sanchez slapped Neil on the shoulder and threw herself feet first into t
he ocean below. She disappeared underwater as she hit; her head popped up a few moments later and she swam away from the hatch.
Neil threw his pack into the water and jumped a moment later. The ocean was salty and bathwater warm, almost nice save for the pain in his lungs and knees and elbows. Treading water hurt. The others jumped in behind them, with Davis coming last. He made a significant splash and swam strongly over to Neil.
“The real tragedy here is that you folks see me without my shirt on,” he muttered so only Neil could hear. Neil laughed.
The dropships pivoted and moved away, after a minute, they accelerated skyward in a roar, headed for a rendezvous with the Fremantle. They would probably make it.
Neil looked at the two dozen heads above the water, floating alone in the great ocean. He couldn’t control his mind: What if we’re in the wrong place? What if the Hans shoot down our ride? We won’t survive. Two point one atmospheres, too much carbon dioxide at sea level, the briefing had said. More than two hours without a rebreather would result in “a condition not consistent with life,” as Doc Avery would say, and they wouldn’t get their rebreathers until they met their contact. After ten minutes, he heard some disquieted murmurs from some of the Marines.
The black submarine sail broke the surface of the ocean about fifty meters away.
Archerfish was an attack boat, sleek and deadly, not some bulky supply cow or deep-water troop carrier. Neil knew the submarine was one of only three American seagoing vessels still operational on Sequoia.
In addition to the regular crew, Archerfish carried an NSS operative, one recently plucked from the Chinese coastline across the sea. She was “Drummer” in coded transmissions; her name was Violet Kelley. Her parents had named her for a flower, hoping she would be a gentle, graceful girl, given to pursuits in the arts, or natural sciences, or perhaps teaching. Graceful she was, in the way of a jaguar about to kill something.
Violet Kelley grew up on Independence, the first purely American colony world, orbiting Sigma Draconis. She found life on the frontier boring; her part of Independence was mild, if perpetually cloudy, and she left as soon as she could, via the only conduit she could think of: She joined the Marines. She spent two years in a rifle platoon, followed by four years with the snake eaters in a deep reconnaissance unit. She was good with guns, very good with explosives. She was happy crawling through the mud, happy in freefall, happy sighting a grenade launcher on a distant target.
But after six years, she became bored again. The late 2120s and early 30s were generally peaceful, and her unit didn’t get involved in any of the little brush wars or police actions that cropped up. She felt like a parade rifle, never fired in anger, clean and ceremonial and useless.
Then she met Gardiner Fairchild. At the time, four years prior, she was assigned to a reconnaissance company on Kuan Yin. She had just rotated back to the surface after two months in orbit, and she was stuck with running a demonstration for some civilian bigwig from Earth who was visiting one of the Army bases in Sequoia.
She’d found herself talking with the bigwig’s aide, a well-dressed, very white gringo with a New England accent, an aristocratic demeanor and a fifty-dollar name. He was a skilled talker and an even better listener. To him she described her frustrations with the Marine Corps.
A week later, after he had gone, she found herself invited to attend a National Security Service training course. She went on detached duty from the Marines and joined the NSS’s Special Activities Division, the rather euphemistic name for the agency’s offensive arm. Within Special Activities were groups for computer warfare, propaganda, and for direct action – breaking things and killing people.
Direct action was Violet’s specialty. She had run operations in Thailand and the former Indonesia and on the Arabian colony world, Najm al Din. She had returned to Kuan Yin as the sole direct action officer on the planet.
Six months ago, another submarine had dropped her off on an uninhabited stretch of coastline of the main Chinese continent in the northern hemisphere. She had explosives with her and directions to several supply caches. She was to prepare a hit on the main laser-launch facility that propelled ships to orbit.
Backup would arrive within two months, she was told, but it never came. When the war kicked off, she bombed the facility anyway, knocking out one of the main lasers, but it only disabled the site for a week. She fled to the dusty outback and awaited further orders. When they at last arrived, she was dubious.
Violet Kelley knew what she was, and relished it. She knew the United States, tired empire that it had become, still needed people like her to go into the dark places to sway events in its favor. She was a shepherd, she had decided, but one who sought out the wolves to defeat them.
Now, she couldn’t decide if the wet, coughing Space Forcers before her were shepherds themselves, or just sheep. They looked pathetic, stumbling around in the gravity as Archerfish descended into the depths and angled toward the Sequoia coastline.
“Where’s Commander Davis?” she demanded.
She wasn’t impressed with who stepped forward, and the arguments didn’t take long to start. Kelley had her own ideas how to rescue Donovan. She wanted a small team, not in uniform but in civilian clothes, to make the raid.
Davis flatly refused on the uniforms as a violation of the laws of war, ultimately threatening to leave Kelley out of the operation entirely before she relented. They finally settled that they would take all ashore when they landed on Sequoia and decide later who would take part in the actual rescue.
Neil found it hard to believe Kelley and Donovan were part of the same organization. Donovan was pensive, even owlish, drawn from America’s vast middle class and molded into a professional spy. Kelley was a colonial, intense and critical, who paced and argued and swore. Her combativeness made Neil hesitant, unconfident in his plan. But Davis stuck up for it, and, by association, him.
AUSTRALIAN WARSHIP IN ORBIT; TWO ORBIT-TO-SURFACE CRAFT DEPARTED AND RETURNED. WARSHIP STILL IN VICINITY OF KUAN YIN AND BEING PURSUED. PRESUMPTION IS INSERTION OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES.
Australian? Li wondered as he read the report. Its approach had not been widely broadcast. He had not followed the aftermath of the battle closely, except to learn San Jacinto had survived and was lurking out there in the asteroid belt. An enemy warship’s presence would certainly put a scare in the civilian leadership on the planet: They feared above all else orbital bombardment of their cities.
An hour’s research, however, gave Li Xiao the information he needed. The warship had been with San Jacinto throughout the fleet battle and the aftermath. He called Major Shen and told him he had information that the prison could face attack from insurgents soon. Li wanted a company of heavy infantry and drones on standby. Then he called Khenbish.
“Please return to Cottonwood and join me at the prison. Our friends should be arriving soon.”
Neil had never run flat-out in a dragoon suit before. Some part of his brain nagged at him that the world was moving by faster than it should be, as he propelled himself forward at close to 35 kilometers per hour. His vision bounced as they ran along; he stayed focused on the two white “cat’s eyes” painted on the back of the helmet of the Marine running in front of him.
They were barreling through a glacier-carved canyon, heading northwest and up. Four hours ago they had put ashore on Sequoia, and they entered the canyon in the hopes it would make them harder to detect, as a Han surveillance drone or satellite would have to pass almost directly overhead to see them. Two hours ago they had reached an altitude where the carbon dioxide levels were low enough that they could take off their rebreathers. An hour ago they hit the interface, the furthest advance of Earth life. A few sickly shrubs poked out from the sterile canyon walls.
The canyon became a valley, then a mere depression. The Aussie Pathfinder captain, at the fore of the convoy, sent everyone a message to halt. They were in the area where they were supposed to meet their contacts.
The ar
ea was forested, a tidy arrangement of broadleaves and ferns that was obviously a human design, lacking the random, pleasant growth patterns that result when nature is left to its own devices.
“Mercer, Wu, come forward,” Davis transmitted. The two intelligence officers went to the head of the party, where Davis and Kelley were waiting. The Marines and Aussies spread out to form a perimeter.
Neil set his handheld to transmit a code phrase on a short-range broadcast; moments later, he received the proper response. Their contacts were close. Neil nodded to Davis, and a figure emerged from the trees and approached them. The Marines had missed her.
“I’m Rebecca Torren, formerly of the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department,” she said. She pressed something on her handheld.
Three more figures emerged from the trees, two men and another woman. They carried rifles of Chinese manufacture. Neil looked at them intently, and in one of the men, saw some shadow of the confident gait he had known.
“Rand,” he said.
Rand peered at him. “Who’s that? Neil? My god, man, what are you doing here?”
“I’m glad you’re alive, Rand,” Neil said.
Rand hugged him fiercely, raising him off the ground with the strength of his lifter gear.
Neil looked him over. He was thinner; his fatigues were ragged and dirty. He’s become a guerrilla.
“Your transmissions to Vincennes. I found you on a list of active groups still fighting in the area,” Neil said. He pointed at Torren. “Truth be told, we actually need her more than you.”
“Her?” Rand said.
“Me?” Torren said.
“We’re going to rescue some prisoners who are being held in the Cottonwood County jail,” Neil said. “You know your way around the facility, presumably. We need your help getting in there.”
“Oh,” Torren said. “I guess that makes sense. Who are the prisoners?”
