Star Angel: Prophecy

by David G. McDaniel

  Then Zac was back and standing beside them. Not even breathing differently. Just … same as he was. Heath noticed the SAS guy and the militia guy staring at him in stunned silence, having been in furious action a moment before, now frozen in place, each of them briefed on Zac but … still. None could believe what just happened.

  The militia guy looked at Zac, explosions continuing to erupt all around. He made a wide-eyed appraisal that summed it up nicely:

  “That’ll do, mate.” He swallowed. “That’ll do.”

  CHAPTER 28: HONG KONG

  The nerves were still there, but Jess was no longer afraid.

  She crouched atop a huge, stone gargoyle in the rain, a leering Chinese dragon that jutted from the corner of the Bok skyscraper right near the top, perched at the crest of its head, one hand down for balance, gaze out and scanning the city. She should’ve been afraid, at least a little, if for no other reason than that she was up so high, on the outside of a towering skyscraper. Way high. Fall-for-a-solid-minute-before-you-hit-the-ground high, but she had no time to be concerned with heights. Reason told her to be afraid. Reason told her to grab onto the rain-slicked surface and hold on for dear life, city streets spinning madly far below, but that reaction wasn’t happening. All such concerns were gone, banished as she made her way steadily up, doing things no human ever could, and it had become such a wild new perspective that the biggest danger was not falling, but that this new reality might blow her straight out of her head. These changes, this new understanding, what she was doing, wrapped up in a unified “self” that was so vastly different and yet no different at all, no way even for an outside observer to see that she’d changed at all, beneath that superficial veneer so much more, such focus, such power, and it was absolutely ripping her psyche to shreds.

  Yes. The biggest danger had become keeping herself in the moment.

  She’d made one last contact with Fang and the hackers, confirmed they’d done everything they could with security and she was free to proceed, ditched the radio and poncho where she could retrieve them, leapt one of the moat-like interior walls, an easy twenty feet—a little wobbly at first but she made it—and was on her way. Gaining confidence with each hair-raising leap.

  Comic-book unreality, it was, and she was living it. Right up the side of the ornately decorated building, the place the Bok had chosen as their seat from which to rule the world. Using every power and every ability she’d mastered, refining as she went, augmented with the balance and body positioning she’d learned from the various activities of her busybody youth, coupled with any and every other skill she could bring to bear and …

  She made it.

  Now she was at the top—she glanced above her; the edge of the roof her next leap—her incredible, current position achieved entirely freestyle; no ropes, no grapples, just leaping and climbing from one handhold, one ledge and one precarious spot to the next, channeling the uncanny power she needed to do it. She was the American Ninja Warrior on steroids.

  Insane.

  She wondered when her mind would snap.

  Another sweep to check the environment below, still failing to feel any alarm at the sense of height. Her hair was pulled high into a tight ponytail and the end swung in her vision as she looked down, rain running from the tip in a thin stream. Tiny rivulets worked their way down the curves of her face, over her cheeks, dripping from her chin. She’d stopped bothering to wipe them away. The rain was light but steady.

  The view of the magnificent, brilliantly multi-colored lightshow that was Hong Kong was staggering. Just … incredible to behold, especially from that vantage. It would’ve been impressive enough from inside an unlit office, looking out a panoramic window with no reflection to reduce it. But here, outside, looking down from a place no one ever went—no one had ever been here since the engineers put the gargoyle in place—here it was so much more.

  It totally drove home the sense of the epic.

  Big LED billboards shone among the millions of lights, advertising this or that, and in the shine of the rain and the dark of the overarching night it looked like a scene straight out of Blade Runner. All it was missing was a giant Coke ad with the singing Chinese lady. There was even the occasional flying car, lights shimmering in the wetness; Kel patrols she watched until they were out of sight, timing each movement accordingly. Fang had the electronics spoofed for the building but there were still plenty of ways to be discovered. Right now it was all about stealth.

  She looked up, gauged her next and final leap, checked the area for anything obvious, found it clear, rose to a half-crouch, tensed her legs and …

  Leapt.

  Up and over, parkour for the mentally cracked. Only she was doing it. This was no video game Mirror’s Edge—she was beyond that anyway—and she flew impossibly up and over and landed on the other side of the low wall, cleanly onto the roof, a twenty-foot arc or more, rose from her landing and stood tall like it was nothing. For a moment she paused. All the perilous scaling needed to reach her objective, for the moment, done. She took a moment to gather her wits. There was a safety net. Had been, every step of the way. The ultimate safety net, perhaps, though using it would ruin everything. If she couldn’t save herself, which by now she was quite certain she could, she had one last fallback.

  The device harness.

  Mounted flush at the armor’s back, within it a quantum soup just waiting for activation; coordinates for ground-level drops at two points on Earth. One back at the Bok farm, the second near the hills behind her home in Boise, site of the gate. Triggering the next activation would place her in Boise, meaning she would live, but it would also mean completely ending this operation and any probable chance of trying it again. Unacceptable, under any circumstances, but her mind had hovered more than once on the trigger for that bailout as she teetered on the edge of what her senses screamed would be her end.

  But she’d made it. As she knew she would. She was up.

  Composed, she went to the edge of the roof and looked down. One more glance at freedom before she began. Impulsively she raised a leg and put her boot on the ledge. Like laying claim to a new land, it felt like, standing tall, rain falling, powerful city rising all around, dark alien armor protecting her totally, high-tech katana at her back just itching to be used. An incredibly badass pose, she was sure. Like the Dark Knight, looking pensively over Gotham. So many pop-culture references. But how else to frame it? It was how her thoughts ran, it was her reality, and in that moment, more than in any other, she felt like a superhero.

  And maybe she was.

  She took a deep, cleansing breath; in through her nose, filling her lungs with cool, wet air; let it out slowly through her mouth, hissing quietly across her teeth.

  So unlike Jessica of just one short year ago.

  Back then she mostly just hid in her room and worried over why she couldn’t talk to boys. Now she was …

  God was she so far beyond that.

  **

  “Get them clear,” Drake issued orders to the radioman relaying information directly to Heath. A Kel insertion craft was coming, as hoped. Just one so far and everyone in that busy, sweat-nerve filled room prayed it stayed that way. One was all they needed, one was all they wanted, one was what they were getting and it was rapidly reaching range.

  “It will land,” someone was saying. Hoping, as were they all, that it wouldn’t simply open fire. “Too much collateral otherwise. Too sloppy. They’re trying to preserve the refinery, not do more damage.”

  The damage was already done, of course. Heath and his gang had seen to that. Once unleashed the “organized” teams, the civilian militia in particular, had gone overboard with their orders, just as Drake worried they would. He was sure it was the result of pent-up frustration. Professionals though they were, after everything that had happened, to their lives, to the world and all else, once the opportunity came to let loose, their stated objective to engage in a little creative destruction, they’d done so with abandon.
r />   In the end, though, they’d attracted the attention they wanted.

  “I’m recording their traffic,” reported Fang. He and his hacker group were drilled into their numerous monitors, headphones on and seeing and hearing everything, tracking voices, conversations, movements and orders, getting everything they could on the Kel unit that had been tasked with putting down this apparent rebellion. “I’ve identified the pilot and squad commander.” That was a coup. “I’ve got their voice patterns. AI should be able to mimic for radio traffic. I can sample and feed. No visual.

  “Standard Kel procedure so far.”

  They had one satellite feed on a big screen TV on the near wall. Most everyone kept glancing up to it, or simply stared, eyes locked to the unfolding drama. Now that the operation was in play there was little left to do for most of them there at the safe house. Monitor and advise. Fang and his crew, as always, as it would always be, carried the bulk of the success on their shoulders. Earlier Fang’s mind-boggling team of hackers had, simultaneously, taken down all feeds and security at the tower in Hong Kong, paving the way for Jessica to make her move even as this little scene developed in Scotland. That done all eyes were now squarely on the approach of the Kel craft at the refinery and what came next.

  “Coming in range.” And there on the wide screen the Kel insertion craft came into frame, high and from the edge, now beneath the view window of the satellite, a black, deadly profile, no reference for its size though they already knew the exact type and class, one of the standard squad transports about the size of a few busses. Armed and able to kill everyone down there if it chose.

  But it wouldn’t.

  As pointed out it was unlikely the Kel would fire and, as the craft dwindled in the magnified view and came closer to the site of the disturbance, it became clear it would not.

  The Kel were there to mop up.

  “Militia are scattering,” came the report. On the enhanced image could be made out figures, humans, the tops of their heads as they ran around. Now that Objective One had been achieved, elicit a Kel response, there was no more need for the civilian units. They would run, get clear if they could, avoid capture, go to ground, lay low—they were done. Now it was up to the handful of SAS and American Spec Ops guys, and Zac. With Zac in the lead they would take the Kel insertion craft once it was down and …

  Then the real fun began.

  “They’re coming straight in.”

  “Guess they’re not afraid of our little missiles.”

  “Useless against their countermeasures,” Fang piped in, not turning his laser focus from the myriad of shifting information on the screens before him. “There’s no way they can know what we’ve really got in mind.”

  It was perfect. The Kel were landing near the refinery entrance, in the open section of lot where the assault began.

  “Holy …” That was the collective reaction in the room as the craft touched down, the ramp started open and … a single dark figure shot from the shadows of the giant industrial piping. Across the lot like a streak and through the still-opening door.

  “Is that …”

  “Roger that,” said Fang, listening. “I’ve got clipped communication.” He seemed to be checking something critical, on edge, then: “Caught it. We’ve got control.” Then, listening some more: “It’s over.” He turned for the first time in what seemed like an hour. “Zac has control of the craft.” A little shock had crept across his stoic expression. He turned back to the controls.

  “And I’ve got it locked.”

  **

  Stunningly brutal.

  That was the only way Heath could describe it. Zac, killing the Kel like the berserker he anticipated. Heath hadn’t even had time to see it; only the aftermath. The ramp finished its short trip to the ground, the door was open, Zac was inside, rocketing through as soon as it broke from its frame, and so, with questioning looks to each other and anticipating the imminent firefight that might not, in fact, actually occur, Heath and his operators moved. From the shadows where they’d been hiding, across the tarmac to the lander. Guns up like any other urban assault scenario, check-check at each corner, hand signals and all clear as they covered, moving across the open area to the ominous Kel landing craft, hunched there crushing the asphalt with its uncanny weight, heavy even for its moderate size, a mass of thick armor and God-knew-what composites and advanced materials, black and waiting and come to stop them, filled with a squad of Kel soldiers with just that purpose in mind yet …

  Nothing. They made the ramp and, in the same manner, ingrained from thousands of hours of training and actual missions, scrambled quickly yet observantly aboard and …

  Into the carnage within.

  Heath was third in, passing the two before him, SAS guys who had already stopped inside and were standing, guns dropping slowly to their sides. Pete and Steve and Willet and the last SAS guy came in behind. They gathered in the troop area, momentarily at a loss. Zac was making his way back from up front, stepping around or over broken, armored bodies. Blood was splattered everywhere. Not gross, gory pools of it, but the rupture of numerous Kel, so quick, so abrupt, left its mark.

  “Get the gear,” Zac instructed.

  Behind them Pete, Steve and one of the SAS guys ran back down the ramp without question. Absently Zac wiped his hands clean on his pants, smearing off the Kel blood; like any guy might do after he just got out from under the car, work done for the moment, wiping off the grease.

  A few numb, speechless moments later, the rest of them standing around in silence, Pete and the others ran back aboard with several packs stuffed with gear. Plus the gatling gun and the bag of ammo, which Pete carried awkwardly over both shoulders, all of it smacking side-to-side as they hurried as fast as they could. Pete sat the gun and ammo by the door and began handing out the rest.

  There was, of course, no real way to prepare for what they were about to do. They brought HALO kit (High Altitude Low Opening stuff for parachuting from way-high altitudes), helmets, goggles and rebreathers, closed circuit radio sets and a little body armor. The HALO stuff would help against changes in pressure, breathable toxins, things like that. Vacuums, contact poisons—the other sorts of things they might actually face—would kill them without any hope of defense.

  They began gearing up.

  Zac pointed Willet toward the front. “Let’s get going.” Willet went forward. He and Zac had been aboard one of these things before.

  The SAS radioman was getting no signal. “We’re dead in here,” he said. “Last word was Fang has us shielded. Right now the fleet should be seeing a static image of the ground.” He looked at Zac. “Fang is gonna make it sound like these guys captured us.”

  Willet looked back from the cockpit. “Hit the door,” he pointed back across the hold and Zac joined him up front. Steve found the control near the entry door and fired it. The ramp pulled shut and notched closed, thrusting the whole troop hold into instant Aliens Mode. It was a bit of a shock at first; things went from a slice of Earthly sunshine punching in from outside—a small bit of familiarity softening the harsh alien scene—right to nothing but green lighting, spaceship interior and a dozen dead and twisted Kel bodies, laying scattered at all sorts of wrong angles.

  Heath swallowed down a snap of panic. He scanned the hold, noticing the Kel guns looked mostly intact.

  “Should we use those?” he asked.

  Steve shrugged. “Probably.” Without further discussion they each put down their own, Earth weapons and picked up one of the Kel rifles. The alien guns were easy enough to work. Heath and his team had encountered them before. Definitely more punch than their Earth assault rifles and submachine guns. He looked at the heavy gat laying on the floor near the door. Zac’s weapon.

  Not more punch than that.

  Would be interesting to see the big guy use it when the time came. Laying down the law, as Pete said.

  “We’re rolling,” one of the SAS guys said from near the front. He was standing at the cockpit
entry, getting info from Willet and Zac. Heath held his HALO helmet to the side and went forward to look into the hold. The interior of the cockpit was, no surprise, a technological marvel. Panels of complex controls, lights and indicators, framed by a wraparound screen that looked for all the world like a great big window. The refinery was already dropping away outside, no sensation of movement, and they were turning to begin a more rapid ascent.

  Heath watched Zac, sitting beside Willet at the controls, helping as he could, Willet the one with the most understanding of what had to be done. Willet had already grabbed one of the Kel radios from one of the bodies and was making secure contact with Fang over the Kel’s own channels, another victory, and Fang was picking up his role of advisor, letting them know what to expect and giving them the big-picture view of everything that was happening. Apparently Fang was, even now, spoofing an actual Kel conversation with whatever fleet-level commander was running this minor operation, passing along the info that they’d captured high-value targets and were bringing them aboard.

  “Well,” said Willet, sitting back a little as he did the last thing needed for the moment, aiming the craft upward and setting course. “If you have any gods, now would be the time to pray.”

  Heath stared out the window, at the blue sky and white clouds, edge to edge. The clouds closed more quickly than expected and soon they were passing through them, fast-moving wisps then thick rolls of white. Beyond them the sky was deep blue and getting darker.

  He thought on Willet’s words. Heath had been raised in the Church, as had most of his team. Of his guys he was the most “practicing”, going to services many Sundays, saying his prayers, trying to be a good Christian and all else. Used to be that’s the way everyone was. Long ago. Every American, anyway. Now, it seemed, there were so many beliefs, so many non-beliefs, and he found himself curious what the Kel believed. Surely they had gods. How could anyone, no matter how advanced, not believe in something greater?