They traveled in silence for a while; then Yozi signaled for the vehicles to stop.
Slowly, they pulled to a halt. The dead Dragon was slumped pitifully in front of them, a few hundred meters away.
Yozi scanned the desert to the west.
“You’ve seen something?” Chisnall asked.
“Was that a movement?” Yozi asked.
Chisnall stared. He could see nothing, just seemingly endless desert and gray-green scrub. Something was wrong. A warning bell clanged inside his head. He turned back quickly to find the snout of Yozi’s sidearm pointing directly at his right eye.
The universe seemed to stop moving. A bird above them was cut off midcry, painted onto the backdrop of the sky. Dust particles froze in the air around them, shining in the sun like pinpricks in the skin of the world.
“Azoh!” Chisnall said. “What is this?”
“Who are you?” Yozi asked. When Chisnall did not immediately reply, he added, “Tell your squad to place their weapons on the ground. Now.”
“There is no need for this,” Chisnall said. “We are soldiers of the Thirty-Fifth Scout Battalion. We—”
“No, you are not,” Yozi said. “I don’t know who you are, but you are not from the Thirty-Fifth.”
“But—”
“You wear the insignia, but not the Moscow Medal. Every soldier in the battalion was given one after the battle for Moscow. They wear it with pride.”
Chisnall thought fast. “My squad did not fight in Moscow. We were on—”
“It was a battalion-wide commendation. All members wear it. Except you. Goezlin noticed it too.”
So that is what made the PGZ man suspicious.
“You did not know where your headquarters were. Any soldier would have known that from the first hour, let alone the first day. You asked about Uluru. Every soldier is told on their first briefing on arriving on the base never to ask about Uluru.”
“We …” Chisnall’s voice deserted him.
“And just now your man said you had been on combat rations for a week. But the Thirty-Fifth have been on rest leave in Perth since Moscow. They arrived here yesterday. If you’ve spent a week on rations, then you’re not from the Thirty-Fifth. So who are you?”
Chisnall stared at the other soldier. Taking his time. Giving the outward appearance of calm. Any sign of panic or desperation would only make matters worse. In fact, he thought, the best defense might be to go on the offensive. Try to keep Yozi off balance.
An idea occurred to him.
“Very good,” he said at last. “Admirable, in fact. You have exceeded our expectations.”
Exactly what those expectations were was beyond him at that moment, but he was sure he would think of something.
Yozi frowned and the weapon lowered slightly. “Which unit are you from?”
Which unit are you from? He may have been suspicious, but Yozi still did not consider the possibility that they were humans.
“Obviously not from the Thirty-Fifth.” Chisnall allowed himself a smile. “Let me ask you this. Who do you think we are?”
Yozi blinked a few times in quick succession. Clearly, whatever answer he had been expecting, he had not been expecting this. Chisnall leaned back against the sidewall of the vehicle and relaxed, outwardly at least. He tried his best to look like someone who was in charge, not someone who feared for his life.
“Who are you?” Yozi tried again. He sounded less sure of himself now.
Brogan joined in the masquerade. “You tell us.”
Yozi lowered the weapon until it was pointing at Chisnall’s chest. “You’re not PGZ.”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” Chisnall said, idly allowing his left hand to rest on his belt, on top of one of his frag grenades.
“Fezerker?” Yozi asked. He frowned again.
Above them, Kezalu’s mouth dropped open.
Since the start of the war, there had been rumors of an ultrasecret, ultradisciplined alien Special Forces unit. The Fezerkers, operating in secret behind enemy lines.
Whenever something went wrong for the humans—a training accident, a mysterious fire, a faulty missile—it was always thought to be the work of the Fezerkers.
Nobody had ever seen them. No human knew if they really existed.
Until now.
Chisnall stared Yozi straight in the eye and wondered how far he could push this. “Do you know how we recruit new members?” he asked, hoping that there wasn’t a recruiting office in every city.
“I only know that you cannot apply,” Yozi said.
“You are correct.” Chisnall was ad-libbing freely now, and he had worked one of his fingers into the pin of his grenade. “You do not find us. We find you. Understand?” He leaned forward and stared deeply into Yozi’s eyes.
Yozi’s black eyes widened a little. Chisnall was playing to his ego, making him think he had been noticed.
“We were put next to you to evaluate you in action, without you knowing it. The whole thing was just a setup.”
“But the prisoners?”
“We borrowed them from the PGZ. You just returned them for us.”
“So Goezlin knew who you were?”
“Of course.” Chisnall smiled. “He is an old friend of mine.”
Chisnall glanced around. The other patrol vehicle had pulled up about twenty meters away, and Alizza was aiming the fifty-cal right at him.
“You have proof of who you are?” Yozi asked.
“I was wondering when he would ask.” Brogan injected a faint note of criticism into her tone.
“Please show it to me,” Yozi said.
“You think we should keep it on our uniforms?” Chisnall asked. “Perhaps a flashing sign on our helmets?”
“No, of course not,” Yozi said. His gun was now pointing loosely at the floor of the vehicle.
Time to take control, Chisnall thought.
“Your weapon, soldier,” he said in a disapproving tone. “It is no longer covering me, but I have not yet proved my identity to you.”
“Perhaps our optimism was a little premature,” Brogan said.
Yozi looked down at his gun and immediately brought it back up toward Chisnall.
“The proof of your identity,” he demanded.
“Better,” Chisnall said. “The proof is here.”
Chisnall reached down for his backpack and unclipped the top. He started to reach in and glanced at Yozi, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s enough,” Yozi said. “Pass the pack over here.”
“Of course,” Chisnall said.
“What is in here?” Yozi asked. He put down his weapon so he could accept the pack from Chisnall.
“A dingo.” Chisnall said the code word and dived over the side of the vehicle, the grenade pin in his hand.
Yozi stared in the pack for half a second, registering the grenade inside and the fact that the safety lever was gone.
Chisnall hit the dirt, conscious of Brogan and Wilton a nanosecond behind him. He scrabbled his way through the dirt away from the vehicle, desperate for every inch.
“Grenade!” Yozi yelled. He jumped sideways out of the vehicle. Zabet reacted instantly but Kezalu was slower. He hauled himself up, then seemed to get stuck on something, trapped for a moment in the machine-gun well, his eyes wide with panic. He wrenched himself free, jerked his feet up out of the machine-gun well, and leaped awkwardly from the platform, but it was already too late.
The grenade exploded. The Land Rover seemed to bulge in the middle, inflating like a metal balloon before tearing apart. The explosion was followed immediately by a hollow boom and a ball of flame from the fuel tank.
The heat rushed over Chisnall’s head like a blanket, smothering him. Then it was gone. There was a dull thud in front of him and he opened his eyes to see a jagged shard of metal embedded in the desert an inch from his nose.
Lucky once again.
He was already moving, twisting over and sitting up, even as the flash of heat
dissipated around him. His coil-gun whipped out of its back holster into his arms. As fast as he thought he was, he found Brogan already on her feet, her weapon steady on Yozi.
Zabet was lying in a heap near the fiercely burning Land Rover, unmoving. Dazed or dead—there was no way of knowing.
Chisnall turned to the second Land Rover, just in time to see Alizza fly through the air and land face-first on the desert floor while Monster roared and raged like a wild animal behind him. There had clearly been some kind of fight, and it was just as clear who had won. Monster was already climbing up onto the fifty-cal, while Price had the other two Pukes covered with her rifle.
His own weapon sprang into his hands as Chisnall jumped to his feet and ran around to the other side of the vehicle. As he reached its edge, he stopped. There was no need to hurry. Kezalu had been in midair when the grenade had exploded, perhaps half a meter from the Land Rover. He had not stood a chance.
Chisnall walked back around to Zabet and found her dazed and moaning. She was bleeding from the nostrils, but alive. He prodded her with the muzzle of his rifle until she was conscious enough to realize what was happening, then herded her over toward Yozi.
Brogan kept her gun on the two of them while Chisnall walked back to the second Land Rover and disarmed the three soldiers there. Alizza was still spitting out dirt from his headfirst dive into the desert.
A moment later, Yozi’s remaining soldiers were sitting in a group, under the watchful eye of Monster on the fifty-cal. Chisnall walked back to where Kezalu lay. His body armor had been shattered by the explosion, and blood was being sucked out of his body by the dry sand of the desert. His eyes were open, though, and his breath was a soft whimper.
His eyes found Chisnall’s. They held a quiet question.
Chisnall sat on the dirt next to him and said nothing. Three years of training, but nothing had prepared him for this. This was up close. This was personal. Friend or enemy, it no longer seemed to matter. What was ebbing away in front of him was a life, a living being. He began to hum the soft, sad, syncopated song that Kezalu had sung on the drive. After a moment, the edges of Kezalu’s lips twitched up into an almost-smile.
Then he died.
Chisnall called the others over into a huddle, out of earshot.
“We are Oscar Mike in five mikes,” he said.
“What are you going to do with the prisoners, LT?” Brogan asked.
A gentle wind murmured around them, bringing with it the smell of the salt lake to the north. The sun had brushed away the cool air of the previous night with a single sweep of morning and sweat began to trickle down the back of Chisnall’s neck.
He knew what Brogan was asking. Leaving Yozi and his squad alive would not only compromise the mission, but it might also jeopardize the whole Angel program. If the enemy worked out that humans could disguise themselves as aliens and infiltrate their military bases, they would make security so tight that not even a flea could get in, unless it could prove its off-world ancestry.
“Tie ’em up. Make it secure,” he said.
“That’s it?” Brogan asked.
Chisnall glanced over at Yozi. “I’m not sure I can kill an unarmed man.”
“Not even a Puke?” Price asked.
“I think I could,” Wilton said.
“Really, Blake?” Chisnall asked. “Are you really up to cold-bloodedly shooting an unarmed soldier in the face?”
“I think so,” Wilton said. “A Puke, anyway.”
“And the women?” Chisnall asked.
Wilton’s mouth moved a couple of times, but he said nothing.
Chisnall looked around the group. “They don’t know who we are. As far as they know, we are a renegade bunch of Pukes. We’ll tie them up securely and leave them here. By the time they are found or work themselves free, we’ll be long gone.”
“You tie them up out here without food or water and you might as well put a bullet in their heads,” Price said. “In fact, that might be kinder. It could be days before they’re found.”
Chisnall locked eyes with her but said nothing. After a moment she glanced away.
What the desert did to them was the desert’s business.
Brogan was staring at him with a strange look in her eye.
“Are we okay?” he asked.
Brogan shrugged, and the others nodded.
They stood, and Chisnall walked over to the group of Bzadian soldiers.
“Why?” Yozi asked.
“That’s not important,” Chisnall said. He regarded the other soldier for a moment. Two professional warriors, divided by war and one percent of their DNA. In another universe, they might have been friends. “We will tie you and leave you here, and when we get back to base, we will have a rescue party sent out for you.”
That last part wasn’t true, but it was better to give them hope, Chisnall felt. “Strip off their ID tubes,” he said. Even if they somehow got free, they would get nowhere without their ID tubes.
Yozi was shaking his head. “This makes no sense,” he said.
It wouldn’t, Chisnall thought. As long as Yozi was convinced they were Bzadian, it wouldn’t make sense, and that was the way Chisnall wanted it. Better that Yozi think them crazy than realize they were humans.
Yozi looked at the body of young Kezalu, lying nearby. He turned back to Chisnall and his blue-black pupils burned. “It would be better for you if you killed us,” Yozi said. “I will come after you.”
Chisnall nodded. “I know.”
Yozi stared at him for a moment, then held up his hands to be tied.
As soon as they were out of sight, Chisnall held up his hand, and Price, who was driving, pulled over. He took off his helmet and reached inside. He felt around until he found the raised bump that was the secret catch and lifted out the liner. Inside were six packs containing uniform markings. He took out five. Hunter wouldn’t need his.
“Replace your insignia with these,” he said. “We just changed unit.”
The simple image on the patches was recognizable in any language.
“Bomb disposal,” Wilton said. “I’m getting a real bad feeling about this.”
“There’s too much going on around here that I don’t know about,” Brogan complained as she fixed the patches on her body armor. “If you had been killed back there, none of the rest of us would have had the slightest idea of what to do next.”
“Stay tuned,” Chisnall said. “You’re about to find out. For now, get the fifty-cal down from the top mount and hide it in the back. Bomb techs don’t drive around with fifty-caliber machine guns on their top deck.”
“One thing I do know is that we’re going to be in a huge pile of alien doo-doo if they get loose,” Brogan said, glancing back toward where they had left Yozi and his troops.
“True that,” Chisnall muttered. Had he done the right thing in leaving them alive?
Almost certainly not.
Perhaps he was not the right person to lead this mission.
10. UXB
[0950 hours]
[Exclusion Zone, Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]
YOZI WAITED UNTIL THE LAND ROVER DISAPPEARED INTO the blur of the desert. Only when he was sure they were well out of sight did he twist his arms slightly, just once, pulling one hand through the tie and bringing his arms around in front of him.
His bzuntu, his jagged war knife, had not been taken from him, and he quickly used it to cut through the second tie that fastened his ankles.
“Sloppy,” Alizza commented, noting the ease with which Yozi had got free.
“Did she look sloppy to you?” Yozi asked as he quickly freed Alizza and the others.
“No.” Alizza rubbed some circulation back into his wrists. His bonds had been tight, to the point of cutting off the blood supply. But Yozi’s had been loose. Far too loose. And she had overlooked the bzuntu blade, despite the shaft being clearly visible in the sheath on his inner arm.
Then there was the odd look she had given him as she h
ad tied him: a slight widening of the eyes, nothing more. Or had he merely imagined that?
“Kezalu?” Zabet asked the question nonchalantly, as if it mattered not at all. But it did matter. He could see it in her eyes.
“Leave the body—we can do nothing for him,” Yozi said. “We will send someone back for him. Right now we have to get back to Uluru and stop whatever Chizna is up to.”
“It’s a long way,” Alizza said.
“We will head for the crashed Dragon,” Yozi said. “There was a lot of wreckage. Azoh may smile on us.”
He set out at a run.
Whoever Lieutenant Chizna said he was, he was someone else entirely. When Yozi had met Chizna, he had assumed him to be competent but harmless. That assumption had not done justice to Chizna at all.
[1000 hours]
[Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]
A soldier directing traffic at an intersection was the first to catch sight of them. He glanced at the insignia on Chisnall’s shoulders as they slowed. “This way,” he said. He pointed with a flat hand. “What took you so long?”
Chisnall did not reply but caught Brogan’s eye as they turned down a road in the direction the soldier had pointed. Immediately ahead of them was the huge four-storied building that was the gateway into the rock. The entrance to Uluru. They were close.
On this side of Uluru, the rock formed massive ridges, like the toes of some gigantic creature. The building was built into a cleft in the rock, a gap between two toes. It was obvious that something serious had happened here, although it was not immediately clear what that was.
The curved front of the building was stone. It looked to be intact. The main way in and out of the building—in and out of Uluru—was by monorail. The track of the monorail, thrust into the air on pillars two stories high, curved in front of them over a parking lot before disappearing into the building through big metal doors. There was no monorail car in sight. On top of the structure, a row of fierce alien gargoyles scowled down at the land around it.
A tall, solid-looking security fence blocked access to the building. Inside the fence was a lot of activity—soldiers running in seemingly random directions. An ambulance was just pulling away through a gate in the fence as they approached. The heavy gate slid quickly shut behind it.
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