by Mark Henwick
Then she says: “Switch on the autopilot.”
I find the option on the helicopter’s controls and select it.
“Hey!” the pilot complains. Talan waves the knife in his peripheral vision and he shuts up. He takes his hands and feet off the controls and lets Hwa fly it through her link.
“Zara, just listen, we don’t have much time,” Hwa says. “This connection will last only a couple of minutes more. Firstly, you’re going to need to get into Iruña through the underground rivers and sewer system. I’ve sent you details.”
I’d been worrying about that. Iruña would have been hard enough to get in and out of without someone noticing. Now that the Hajnal knows where I am, it would have been impossible. I’d been expecting Hwa to have to come out and smuggle us in, using a diplomatic pass or something.
Not to be. The sewers, eh? I’d understood all the original plans had been lost. I wondered briefly where she’d got them, but she’s still talking.
“You can’t stay in the helicopter either.”
“Why?” I know she said not to interrupt, but I can’t help it. It’s too far to walk.
“Because the Hajnal have just ordered the Biháriz to destroy it.”
My jaw drops. A destroyer firing into the Newyan atmosphere? The Hajnal have gone mad. There’s no way the Enquiry is going to overlook that.
But Hwa hasn’t stopped. “Primer Ministro Eneko is just at this moment explaining to the Commissioners of the Enquiry that a dangerous terrorist has hijacked a helicopter with the intent of bombing Iruña. Once more details come out, they’ll say that Kat was the terrorist and she unfortunately kidnapped you.”
“But—”
“Shut up. You’re now flying over the River Sakon. There are canyons ahead which will provide cover. I will slow to a hover and you jump into the water.”
“We can’t swim to Iruña!”
“Don’t need to. About ten kilometers downstream, after you exit this set of canyons, on the right-hand bank, there’s a jetty used for river expeditions. Behind that is a river services depot. It’s unmanned. The River Rescue Service and River Police were seconded to standard police duties after the Hajnal declared the last emergency. You’ll need to break in, but there’s a boat in there which will get you down to Iruña.”
“If they have a satellite tracking us, we’ll be sitting ducks on the river,” Talan says.
Kat laughs at Talan’s description. At least someone is finding this funny.
“The satellite is about to have an accident as it drifts into the way of plasma fire from the Biháriz. Conveniently destroying evidence of our conversations as well. They’ll have no tracking, and no high-resolution look-down systems. They’ll requisition the Biháriz to use their scanners, but they’re not designed for the task, and anyway, we’ll deal with that.”
I shiver as I get an inkling of the degree to which Hwa is capable of infiltrating Newyan’s electronic systems.
Kat and Talan have already put on the backpacks with our vital data modules inside. The third backpack with the food is shoved into my hands.
“Thank—” I start to say to Hwa.
“No time for that. Can’t safely communicate with you any more until you get into the tunnels, and high enough under the city that you can receive InfoHub signals. I’ve sent as much as I can about what’s happening in the files on your pad. Get jumping.”
I look up.
We’re flying low over the water between tall canyon cliffs, and slowing down carefully. The helicopter is now juddering noticeably. If it doesn’t get shot down, it sounds as if it’ll fall out of the sky soon enough anyway.
“You heard her—”
I turn to look and stop.
Damn.
What do we do with the pilot?
Leave him here and he could turn the autopilot off. Or he could call and tell them what’s happening.
He’s not dumb. He knows exactly what the problem is. He raises his hands.
“Can not go back now. I dead if I do. Go with. Please.”
Talan’s eyes are narrowing. The knife is still in her hand.
“No. Talan, you can’t.” Kat tugs at Talan’s wrist, wriggles her body between Talan and the back of the pilot’s seat.
I’m watching him. He doesn’t make any moves. His eyes don’t go to the overrides or the radio. He’s probably telling the truth about being killed if he goes back.
“We have to go,” I say, as the helicopter slows to a hover.
The pilot looks down at the water.
“Can not swim,” he says.
Goddess!
“You just lie on your back and relax, I’ll pull you,” Kat says.
Talan sweeps her aside, and her knife flashes.
“No!” Kat screams.
Talan has cut his seat harness. Then she tears open the door, throws the shocked pilot out of the cockpit, and jumps into the river.
Kat dives after them.
I follow.
The helicopter immediately rises above the cliffs and heads away at full speed.
Less than three minutes later, struggling in the freezing water, but still protected by the bulk of the canyon cliffs, we hear a sound like the heavens have been torn apart. I squeeze my eyes shut, dip under the water and it barely seems to make a difference. I can feel the explosions through the river itself. It’s only one broadside surely, but the shocks seem to go on and on. When I finally come up for air, it’s darker. Clouds of dirt and ash are soaring into the atmosphere. The sun is blocked.
As we struggle ashore at the River Rescue Service jetty after an hour of swimming, there’s a smell of scorched earth and the clouds are beginning to float down as a constant, grey, gritty rain. Like the planet is crying.
I flash back to the memory of the Dowr’s awful vision of a possible future Newyan. Nothing grows after the kinetic bombardment—it’s a grey, freezing desert. Even the snow is the color of ash.
Chapter 54
Sánchez
Sánchez is seated with the other ministers at the main conference table. A meeting of the movement, not all the ministers.
Loiola of Foreign Affairs and Berges of Security sit on one side. Two of the three Inner Circle. Facing them, Elizondo of Trade, Zavala of Industry, Carranza of Finance, Yarritu of Food and Agriculture, and him. Despite the failure at Orbaiz station, he’s still there, one whole day later, still laboring under the title of Ministro of Justice and Ministro of Defense (Temporary).
No one asks where Carmen Goya is. No one mentions her at all. She has ceased to exist.
At the end of the table, there’s a screen displaying Primer Ministro Eneko, the third of the Inner Circle, addressing a wildly cheering crowd.
Sánchez wonders what the crowd’s enthusiasm has cost them in incentives, but says nothing. They roar every time Eneko pauses, and that’s all that’s needed. The fact that Eneko’s diatribe against the Names is blind gibberish is neither here nor there. Nor is the fact that Eneko has incited violence at least three times, and, if Sánchez were doing his job as Ministro of Justice correctly, he would have been signing an arrest warrant.
He is doing his job, he tells himself, just constrained by the circumstances, and those do not allow him to arrest the Primer Ministro.
“That seems to be going well,” Berges says approvingly, when Loiola turns the sound down.
She’s insane, Sánchez thinks, not for the first time, but keeps such thoughts to himself. His coffee has cooled in front of him. His stomach is too upset to drink it.
They had paused the meeting out of loyalty to hear the opening of Eneko’s address.
Loiola now returns to the agenda.
“So...” he says, flicking through notes on his pad. “The Xian delegation have protested about the electronic signals in the vicinity of their building, which appear to be causing jamming, and the parking of our naval maintenance ships in geo-stationary orbit between the delegation and their freighter. I’ve apologized and offered a team t
o investigate what could be causing the problem in the delegation’s buildings. They declined. I’ve told them that the positioning of the maintenance ships is a matter for the Bureau of Defense, which is undergoing restructuring.”
His lips stretch, but it could hardly be called a smile.
“Will this situation in any way impact the relief supplies?” Yarritu asks nervously.
“No,” Zavala replies. “They can still communicate. We’ve offered them facilities in the Bureau of Industry just across the plaza.”
“Under strict supervision at all times?” Carranza demands. “I don’t trust them.”
“Of course,” Zavala says. “One of Ministro Berges’ own teams from Security.”
Sánchez doubts that the Security team has any chance of preventing the Xian delegation from meddling in whatever they want to, but their actions have terminated whatever was going on in that direct link between the delegation and the old freighter, the Wújìn, which is still parked in geo-synchronous orbit above Iruña.
What was that link for? What needed such a continuous high bandwidth?
Loiola interrupts his thoughts. “We need suggestions for a new Ministro of the Bureau of Defense,” he says. “We could make the announcement at the same time as we elevate our colleague to the actual position he has been filling.”
He nods at Yarritu.
“Actually...” Sánchez begins.
Loiola stops him. “The two positions are excessive, even for a man of your abilities, Sánchez. You were always the best fit for Justice, and that hasn’t changed. Surely, you’re not letting enjoyment of the additional power get to you?”
They’re all looking at him.
“It was a temporary measure,” Berges says. “Now that the Aguirre terrorists have been disposed of, there should be a relatively quiet time during which it would be ideal to bring someone forward.”
“About that—” he begins, but this time Yarritu interrupts him.
“I’m not at all sure that it will be a quiet time. As I’ve stated in my reports, the Xian delegation—”
“Yes, yes, they’re arguing that they’re going to control the distribution and you told them they can’t. What are they going to do? Fight us? We’ll have the destroyer Santoña meet them and escort them to holding orbit around the space elevator.”
Yarritu tries to speak again, but Sánchez is a veteran of meetings and slips back into the smallest gap. “Actually, it’s not that, or not purely that,” he says.
The eyes of the group all swing back to him, and his heart rate kicks up again.
“Explain,” Berges says.
“There are three points. The first is that we seem to have forgotten that the Aguirres appear to be connected to the Xian family that runs the Fortunate Stars Hong,” he says. “I’m sure Primer Ministro Eneko felt that it was appropriate to describe to the people so vividly the destruction of the helicopter, but I’m concerned that might have an effect on the Xian relief convoy. What if, say, half the supplies are being transported by Fortunate Stars ships. Delegate Hwa is young and unpredictable—”
“She doesn’t have the authority to override Senior Delegate Keo, or whoever will be in command of the relief convoy.” Loiola dismisses it with a wave.
“Unless the commander of the relief convoy might happen to be the captain of the Shohwa, perhaps,” Sánchez says quietly.
Loiola shakes his head angrily. “You’re seeing problems around every corner.” He’s clearly finished with this part of the discussion, but Yarritu speaks up, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“You said three points, Ministro Sánchez,” he says. “What are the others?”
“There was no contact with our police forces in Cabezón at the normal hour for reporting this morning. When my staff called them, they gave a satisfactory report, but the code word used was incorrect.”
“That’s happened before.” Ministro Elizondo peers down the table at him.
“Get the Syndacians to resolve it,” Berges says impatiently.
Sánchez nods. “I would, but that leads me to the third point; I’ve deployed them to the River Sakon at the site where the helicopter was destroyed.”
“The whole force? Why?” Berges is angry.
Sánchez enters a command on his pad, and the screen at the end of the table is now split into two panels. One now shows the track of the helicopter from Orbaiz to the point it was destroyed, displayed on a topographic map. The track, based on the helicopter’s geo-positioning system, is a dashed line. The dashes are highlighted to show where the helicopter is, synchronized to the other panel in the display. That’s a blurry video feed from the same satellite, showing the image of the helicopter racing across the high plains, captured by a ground surveillance lens.
“It didn’t concern you that this is the capability of the satellite we lost in the broadside? Destroyed as it strayed across the line of the plasma fire?” Sánchez asks.
Carranza of Finance winces. The satellites cost a fortune. Newyan won’t be in the position to replace it for some considerable time.
Berges looks even angrier. “It isn’t my fault the idiot in command of the ship hit the satellite.”
“He was ordered to fire as soon as his cannons were ready,” Sánchez points out reasonably, and holds up his hand to forestall another outburst from Berges. “Nevertheless, there’s more to it than that. The satellite shouldn’t have been in the way. It moved so that it was.”
There’s a silence around the table. Now he really has their attention.
“The control records for the satellite...” Elizondo begins.
“The instructions it was following are gone with the satellite. There’s no indication any such instructions came from the facility responsible on Newyan. At my request, the satellite control experts at the facility have hypothesized a way for a narrow beam communications laser to drop the satellite into system mode and then change its maneuvering instructions.”
“There’s no way to fire a narrow beam laser from the surface, through all the atmosphere and ensure a stable lock on the signal detection equipment of the satellite without us being aware of it,” Yarritu says. “It’s simply not possible. Even I know that.”
“Impossible from the ground,” Sánchez says. “Not so from a ship in space.”
“Wait,” Loiola says. “So, that Xian ship out there hacked into the satellite and had it move so it was destroyed. Is that what you’re saying? To what benefit?”
Sánchez shrugs. “I’m saying something or someone made it move. As to the benefit or otherwise, it has deprived us of our high-resolution tracking capability for that part of Newyan... And now, we have arrived at the interesting section of the replay.”
He directs their attention back to the screen.
“The satellite was well placed to track the helicopter, but not from directly above.” He slows the replay right down. Now the tracking image also displays the helicopter’s speed. It’s shown reducing as the aircraft approaches the canyons on the River Sakon. “With the result that, as you see here, the satellite loses sight of the helicopter due to the height of the canyon walls.”
“It stopped!” Carranza says, after five seconds waiting for it to re-appear.
“It just slowed down,” Yarritu says. “The pilot is being cautious.”
“Why fly into the canyons at all?” Elizondo asks.
Sánchez ignores them. “The actual speed at any point in the shadow of those canyons is speculation, but it had to have slowed down given the time it was in there. Here it is emerging.”
The helicopter surges upwards out of the canyons and speeds off.
“Note, it is no longer moving in the direction of Iruña at this point, whereas it was before,” Sánchez says.
“Where was it going then? What’s in that direction?” Loiola demands.
“It was going to the nearest point where its destruction would cause the least damage,” Sánchez replies, “and in the direction that brought it and t
he satellite into a direct line from the destroyer at the point the broadside was ready to fire.”
The video and tracking feeds end just before the destruction of the helicopter, as the plasma bolts responsible pass through the satellite as if it were made of foil.
Zavala breaks the silence, clenching his hands together nervously. “You’re telling us that someone, who must have all our communication protocols, encryptions and codes, is monitoring our conversations, overheard our orders, got the Aguirres out of the helicopter into the river, took over flying the helicopter while coordinating with an old freighter to move the satellite in order to get the broadside from the Biháriz to destroy all the evidence and make it appear as if the Aguirres are dead, and at the same time preventing us from using the surveillance satellite to confirm that?”
Sánchez shrugs again.
There’s a long wait while they take this on board. Berges’ face is red and her eyes glittering balefully, but she says nothing. Loiola is also silent. He appears to Sánchez as if the possibilities summarized by Zavala have truly shaken him.
The others start to speak, mouthing standard pro-forma denunciations against Xian. To Sánchez’s ears, it’s just noise.
“It feels incredible,” Loiola says eventually when the others wind down. “But still. You seem to have a good grasp of the issue, Ministro Sánchez, so I suggest you remain in your post at Defense for the moment to get to the bottom of this incident. In the meantime, we approve your use of the Syndacians.” Heads nod around the table. “Once we are sure that the Aguirres are dead, one way or another, then the troops can return to Cabezón and deal with whatever the situation is there. It’s not as if one city alone can do anything. How we deal with Xian, if this is indeed their doing, may give us leverage in the coming negotiations. An attack against us by Xian could be just the argument we need to get Earth on our side and gain acceptance for Newyan into the Inner Worlds.”
It is a policy they have used before, to good effect, playing Xian off against Earth in negotiations.
“There is a matter of the costs.” Sánchez forwards a message to their pads that he’s received from the Syndacian commander. “He suggests that we’re coming close to engaging in a civil war which he is ill-equipped and under-manned to fight.”