by John Lumpkin
The major looked back and forth between them. “There will be consequences, Officer Li. I will see to it personally.” He gathered his gear and left the office.
They found the security control room; the single PLA private inside had to be forced away from his console but otherwise didn’t put up a fight. Kelley handcuffed him to a chair. Torren sat in his place, looking for a command to unlock the prison section. Her console had been reprogrammed to function in Mandarin, and she couldn’t figure out how to switch it back. Neil looked over her shoulder, trying to translate the symbols with his limited Chinese.
The sound of an explosion reached them, followed by a second, smaller blast.
Kieran Wu, transmitting to Neil: “Your Marines just took out a truck entering the jail compound, and we can hear a drone. I don’t think you have much time left.”
Neil said to the others, “More bad guys headed in. We’re running out of time.”
“Then help me,” Torren growled.
“Is there anything else that would unlock the doors?” Neil asked.
“Fire alarm,” she said.
“That’s right here.” He reached over and pressed a button.
Alarms sounded throughout the building. The jail’s master computer, perplexed, couldn’t detect where the fire was, so it sprayed a gush of flame retardant mixed with water from every ceiling in the building.
The steel door on Donovan’s jail cell clicked once and swung open, but no one came through. What’s happening? He had heard more shots, and then a muffled crack reverberated through the soundproofed walls a minute ago, and now fire alarms had sounded. He ambled over to the doorway, stood under it, avoiding most of the white spray of foam from above.
He saw other heads poking out from cells down the long corridor. The Space Force commander, Raleigh, appeared in an adjacent doorway. At the far end of the corridor, near the entryway, was Sun Haisheng. The members of his entourage also emerged from other rooms. Donovan was amazed they were holding them here together, given he hadn’t seen or heard any of them since he arrived.
Raleigh, gaunt from weeks of captivity, walked toward Donovan. His uniform was drenched.
“You … who are you?”
Cameras might be recording.
“Bill Marshall, State Department,” Donovan said.
Raleigh opened his mouth to respond, but a shout at the far end of the corridor interrupted him.
The door crashed open; beyond, a woman in Chinese battle armor and carrying a rifle stepped into the hallway and fired a three-shot burst. One of Sun’s aides died.
The woman wasn’t one of the regular MPs, but Donovan recognized Li Xiao behind her. He held a pistol. Raleigh stared, transfixed, as the woman pointed the rifle in their direction. Donovan grabbed him and pulled him into his cell as shots ricocheted down the corridor.
“You move pretty fast for a diplomat,” Raleigh said.
Donovan didn’t respond, but looked for some means of escape. There wasn’t any. They were cornered.
“Let’s bar the door,” Raleigh suggested. Together, they tried to pull his bed free from its floor bolts, to no avail.
In the hall, Khenbish moved from cell to cell, executing each prisoner with icy efficiency. Sun Haisheng, leader of the Taiwan Liberation Congress, died screaming in both fury and fear.
Soon, Raleigh and Donovan were the only prisoners still alive, simply because their cells were farthest from the entry into the cell block.
Their numbers were dwindling; Harkins was leaving Marines to guard chokepoints in the jail so they could get out safely. Two were taking fire three corridors back. Harkins herself popped a Chinese major guarding the top of a stairwell; he fell to the floor, bleeding from a messy wound in his shoulder. Harkins kicked his gun out of reach, leaving the man, probably to die.
They passed into another room, which Torren said was the entryway to the cell block. It was empty save for a desk. Closed steel doors led in two directions. The door across from them led down a long corridor to the cell block. Torren said the second door, to their left, led to private rooms, used for attorney-client meetings and interrogations.
They heard a scream. It was silenced by a shot.
Deputy Rebecca Torren realized what was happening before anyone else – someone was executing the prisoners in the cell block. She charged forward and threw open the cell block door, which clanged loudly against the wall.
Too loudly – Li Xiao whirled and fired before Torren could get a shot off. Li’s bullets struck her in the throat and abdomen; she twisted and fell to the floor.
Rand watched her go down, and thought, Not another one. He leapt the desk, firing wildly into the hallway.
Torren was choking as a pool of blood spread beneath her. Rand heard a pop; a shot passed close to his ear. He took aim and fired.
Khenbish stumbled backward but kept her feet; her armor must have absorbed the hit. She steadied her rifle …
… and a thin form emerged from a nearby cell and crashed into her. A second tried to tackle the man behind her, but didn’t get a good grip and slid off. Li Xiao fired his handgun once, pointblank, into his attacker, then turned and ran, rounding a corner and disappearing through a door into another part of the cell block.
Khenbish shrugged off her assailant and pointed her rifle at him.
But Rand was ready. His Chinese assault rifle bucked against his shoulder, and Khenbish spun backward from the impact and hit the floor.
Rand tried to shout “clear,” but his voice only croaked. He kneeled down beside Torren. Kelley approached, motioning for Neil and Harkins and the last Marine, Apodaca, to enter the cell block.
Kelley rolled over Torren, and looked at her wounds impassively. She knew immediately.
“I’m sorry, Castillo,” she said.
Commander Raleigh was bruised but otherwise unhurt; he had knocked Khenbish off balance before Rand shot her. Khenbish, too, was alive; her armor had absorbed much of the bullet impact, though she had the wind knocked out of her. Harkins disarmed her as she gasped for breath.
Donovan was slumped against the wall, bleeding. Li Xiao’s bullet had passed through the meaty part of his thigh, but it hadn’t cut a major artery. Apodaca, the Marine, patched the wound and gave him a painkiller.
Kelley approached, stood above Donovan, appraising him. Neil was right behind her.
“You’ve looked better, Jim,” she said.
“I’ve felt better, too, Violet.” Donovan’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Thank you for coming for me. The man who shot me … it was Li Xiao, from the San Jacinto.”
Neil’s mind flashed to the shootout in the alley on Entente. He’s here?
Kelley said, “Who?”
Donovan ignored her, looked at Neil. “He’s been interrogating us. He’s been hunting everyone from the San Jacinto. He won’t let us escape, not if he can help it.”
He’s been hunting us.
Kelley said, “What have you told them?”
“As far as I can remember, nothing of consequence,” Donovan said, grimacing. “I can’t speak for the other prisoners.”
Harkins tapped Neil’s shoulder. “Sir, should I go after him?” Harkins asked. “He might complicate our exfiltration.”
Neil nodded. “Ten minutes.” It would be that long before Donovan could walk, anyway. Harkins and Apodaca left through the door Li had fled through.
Kelley said, “We should check their systems to see if we can get any recordings of interrogations. You can delete them, but they’d be idiots to have only stored them here. But at least we’d know what they know.”
“There is a console in one of the interrogation rooms,” Raleigh said, pointing back to the anteroom. “They’re off on the right.”
“I’ll handle it,” Neil said. He checked the clip in his M7 and remembered he hadn’t fired a shot during the entire operation. He walked toward Rand, kneeling beside Torren’s body, and stopped, wondering if he should say anything, but Rand, inconsolate, didn�
�t acknowledge him.
No time, Neil thought. He crossed the anteroom and entered the corridor that led to the interrogation room. Steel doors closed themselves behind him. He searched rooms, hunting for a computer.
Kelley returned to Rand. He had closed Torren’s eyes.
“Get up, soldier,” she said.
“She was a sheriff’s deputy, you know that?” Rand said.
Of course Kelley did, but she said nothing.
“Her job was to investigate break-ins and round up drunks,” Rand said. “She could have surrendered and been deported with the others, but she decided to fight. Saved our ass more than once. I was her CO. I failed her.”
Kelley said, “We need to search the other cells, and we’re a little low on both time and manpower. So get up and do your job, Castillo.”
Rand got up.
Two bodies were in the hall. They found six more, one per cell, all but one slumped forward with a bullet in their brain. Most appeared to be Chinese; Kelley identified them as leaders of the Taiwan Liberation Congress.
The last was an American, or at least someone of primarily European descent. Rand turned him over. He had enough left of his face to identify him.
It was Yancey. It explained a lot … the private had been captured, his identity used to lead Rand and his guerrillas into the trap that had killed McKay and the others.
He was alive just a few minutes ago. Now he’s another one of my people who is dead. Because I failed them.
Harkins heard it first: a weak, confused cry for help from a nearby cell. She motioned silently for Apodaca to cover her as she entered the room. But it was no trap: It was Lieutenant Stahl, cowering in the corner, not knowing what was going on. It seemed to Harkins that the Hans had been collecting Jacintos here. Their quarry would have to wait. She and Apodaca led him back to the others.
Neil found a desk computer in the third office on the right. Beside it was a pile of clothes that included, for some reason Neil couldn’t begin to fathom, a bra. He tapped the machine’s screen; sure enough, it was logged into the prison network.
Before he could connect his handheld, Neil heard a door open in the corridor and pocketed the computer. He unslung his M7 and put his back to the wall next to the door, out of view of the hallway. Probably one of his comrades …
A shadow moved past the door, but in the wrong direction: toward the anteroom. The person must have come through a door at the far end of the corridor.
Does that lead back to the cell block? Torren didn’t say.
Neil stepped into the corridor. He recognized the thin, male figure with his back to him.
“Drop your weapon,” Neil said in Mandarin, raising his gun.
Li Xiao complied.
Something snapped in Rand.
He strode into the corridor, where the woman they had captured was kneeling on the floor, hands behind her head. Private Apodaca stood behind her, a rifle pointed at the back of her neck.
Rand took Apodaca’s position. “What’s your name?” he demanded of her.
“I am nobody,” she said in accented English.
Rand took it as defiance, but didn’t care. “You do this?” he pointed at the cells and the carnage within.
“Yes,” she said.
He turned to Kelley.
“Any chance we could haul her out of here as a prisoner?”
“No way. It’s going to be hard enough to exfil as it is.”
He turned back to Khenbish, pointing his gun at her. “You’re a mass murderer, you know that?”
“Wait one, there, soldier,” Commander Raleigh said. “You can’t …”
Rand didn’t listen to anything else the Space Force puke had to say.
I can’t bring them back, but I can keep this one from killing any more.
He pulled the trigger.
Neil approached Li Xiao, M7 at the ready.
“Down,” Neil said in Mandarin.
Li Xiao kneeled and put his hands behind his head without further prompting.
He wasn’t much older than Neil. His face was an expressionless mask, save for his burning, dark eyes. His left arm was scarred in straight, white lines.
Neil tried to absorb everything Donovan had told him. This man was the architect of the bloody massacre in the jail, the killings on Commonwealth, and who knows what else.
I guess I should hate him, but he scares me, Neil realized. I can’t let him see that.
“I killed your friend Sato, shot him in the doorway of his dropship,” Li said. “I broke your man Donovan. He whimpers like a dog. Is he dead?”
“He’ll live,” Neil said.
“That's a shame.”
Why is he taunting me? Does he want me to kill him? Just a minute ago I was ready to take his head off. Now, killing him feels like murder.
Neil knew the raid didn’t have the means to escort a prisoner back to the Archerfish. He also knew he couldn’t just let Li Xiao go. Consult the others? No, don’t punt. This is your command, and you have no time. Solve your own problems.
He pointed his M7 at Li Xiao. The gun felt heavy in his hands.
Is this right?
He pulled the trigger.
April 2137: Neil drove Rand’s Mercedes through the black sky, heading to one of the mountain casinos that sucked cash from Denver metro. Cade Singer dozed in the passenger seat. Rand had called, woke Neil up, forty minutes prior, saying he had missed the last bus out, couldn’t raise a cab and needed a ride home.
Neil was angry. Rand had been a good roommate, on the whole, a partier, yes, but one who respected Neil’s studiousness. And he had been the catalyst for a lot of the fun Neil had managed to have in college so far. But bailing him out, yet again, this time at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday. Dammit, I’ve got a class in five hours. And it’s three weeks until finals!
He pulled the car in above the casino, its outline highlighted in garish neon purples and greens. His handheld buzzed with a dozen advertisements, from the casino as well as the restaurants and prostitutes in its orbit.
Cade stirred at the car’s transition from flight to hover. He looked out the window.
“Shit, Neil, I see him. I think he’s in trouble.” He pointed.
Neil rotated the car. They were low enough that he could recognize Rand’s lanky frame, standing in a far corner of the parking lot. Three other figures were arrayed around him.
The three rushed him; Rand dodged one, but the others grabbed him. One threw a punch into his gut, and he doubled over and went down.
He’s drunk, Neil knew. Rand was too well-trained to fall for a move like that when sober.
Neil would later chide himself for not using the Mercedes’ fans to disorient the men attacking Rand. He landed the car about fifteen meters away; the men surrounding Rand turned toward it.
As they exited, Neil was relieved to see they weren’t wearing uniforms – not cops or security guards.
He raised his hands, palms out.
“We’ll just take him and go,” he said. “This doesn’t have to get worse.”
Their leader, a bald bull of a man in a black t-shirt, pointed a tattooed arm at him. “You got the two thousand this fucker owes us?” He turned and kicked Rand in the ribs.
A cold and clarifying rage blossomed through Neil. That was not necessary. “Don’t do that again,” he said, summoning his officer’s voice.
It didn’t work. “Or what?” The man grinned, and turned to kick Rand again. Neil gave himself over to his training and rushed him; Cade took the cue and went after one of his sidekicks. In seconds, both were down, with Neil and Cade atop each of them, forearms pressed against their throats. The third tough took a step back, eyes darting between them.
The bald man probably had 20 kilos on Neil. He struggled, spat. Something in his continued defiance made Neil snap; he made a fist and let fly with three rapid punches. The first two landed on the bald man’s cheek; the third forced a fold of flesh inside his mouth into his teeth. Blood sprayed, on the man
’s face, on the pavement, on Neil’s fist. Neil drew back for a fourth punch.
“Neil! Easy, buddy, it’s over,” Rand said. He was standing, holding a hand to his ribs. “We can go now. This guy’s done.”
They flew home with Neil at the controls. Rand was excited. “See how big that guy was? I didn’t know you had it in you, buddy. You really laid him out. He’s gonna have some nice scars to remember you by.”
Neil stared forward, watching the crease that separated the Rocky Mountains from the night sky. I lost it. I could have just kept my arm to his throat, and he’d have been done. But I had to hurt him – that was wrong. I have to stay in control from now on.
Rand’s bullet took Khenbish in the occipital lobe, destroying her visual cortex, before smashing into the rest of her brain and exiting through her right eye. She knew a disoriented moment of white hot pain as her vision flashed like fireworks going off.
Then she knew nothing at all.
Neil’s bullet struck Li Xiao behind his right knee, tearing through his posterior cruciate ligament where it met the back of his femur. The round shattered in his leg bone, but enough of its force carried forward to blast through the back of his kneecap.
A splatter of red gore burst from beneath his knee. Li Xiao screamed briefly and fell on his side. A handheld fell from his pants’ pocket.
Neil reached down, picked up Li Xiao’s computer and sidearm and pocketed them. He stepped over Li’s moaning form and walked toward the door to the anteroom. Uncertainty fell over him. He knew he had struck a deal with himself, eliminating a short-term problem without committing what his mind interpreted as murder. I’m not a murderer. But he won’t hunt us for a while.
He returned to the group to find Commander Raleigh threatening to have Rand arrested.
Rand just stared at him, looking ready to beat the man he had just helped rescue. Kelley interposed herself between them and said quietly to Raleigh, “I’m NSS.” She motioned to Khenbish’s body. “This needed to happen.”
