The Red

by Linda Nagata

  “Colonel Rawlings’s orders, sir.”

  “Colonel Rawlings is not your commanding officer and he does not give a shit about you.”

  In the aisle, Jaynie is getting up. She’s got her hand on Tuttle’s shoulder, holding him back.

  “Yes, sir,” Flynn says. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “I want you out of the cockpit.” I get up and haul her with me. Jaynie squeezes out of the way as I shove Flynn toward the door. “All of you. Out.”

  “Stay where you are,” Rawlings counters.

  I lay into him. “Get off of gen-com and stop interfering. This is my squad, my mission—”

  “You’re damn right it’s your mission, and you have a duty—”

  “Didn’t you have a duty too? Wasn’t it your duty to protect Lissa? You and all your secret conspirators—”

  “You’re the one who gave it away,” Rawlings says. “That combat robot you took down, it had an infrared camera. That’s how they ID’d you, Shelley—by your heat signature. Prosthetics so cold they didn’t show up in IR. You must have looked like a ghost floating legless above the snow.”

  Fuck.

  Me.

  “You did that to him?” Jaynie demands, incredulous. Despite my order, she’s still in the cockpit, and so is Tuttle. Only Flynn has left. “No one worked that out before the mission?”

  No one did, because the legs work so damn well our mission planners didn’t think of them as a liability, and gave them no special consideration—but I should have. I live in the uncanny valley. I know the difference. I knew it walking in the forest, when shafts of ice were jammed into my bones.

  But my critical error came much earlier, at Fort Dassari, when I tried to ignore the warning of the Red. If I had listened and gotten my people out in time, I would have been standing in the snow of the Apocalypse Forest on human limbs, not the lifeless titanium legs that betrayed me, and Lissa would be safe.

  I wonder if she’s still alive.

  I take note of the fact that we are. We haven’t been blown up yet.

  Please listen this time.

  “What now?” Jaynie asks me.

  I give her the answer, straight up. “We’re waiting for the Red.”

  Ransom would back me if he was here, but Jaynie has to think about it. While she does, gen-com is silent. I hope that means my soldiers trust my judgment, but it’s easier to imagine that down on the cargo deck, Nolan, Harvey, Moon, and Flynn are plotting a coup. Judging by the suspicion on his face, Tuttle is sure to join them.

  We all flinch as the proximity alarm goes off. Ilima kills it instantly. “Two more fighters,” she announces in a trembling voice. “Shikras, from the east.”

  A shudder runs through me. This is it, I just know it, this is what we’ve been waiting for. It’s Dassari all over again and I wonder what essential piece of me I’m going to give up this time.

  But this time is different. This time I’m listening; I’m heeding the will of my artificial god. That buys me a different ending . . . doesn’t it?

  The radio wakes up. There’s a scrambled transmission, and then the merc speaks: “It’s over. Take them out.”

  I look east, and spot the lights of the Shikras. Their pilots don’t care if they’re seen. They kick on their afterburners. Trailing long white cones of blazing exhaust, they shoot to a higher elevation and then swoop down again on a vector that will bring them across our path.

  West of us, the American pilots are maneuvering too, but they’re not moving to meet the Shikras. One pulls straight up and away. The other dives toward us.

  I see the flare of light as a missile is released. I take grim satisfaction in the sight. It’s vindication. I knew the threat was real. Now we will be shot down. And there’s nothing I can do for Lissa anymore. Nothing I can do for anyone. Seconds left, as the missile beelines toward us.

  The nose of the C-17 suddenly drops out from under me. I stagger and catch myself against the pilot’s seat. Ilima has put us into a steep dive. Light from the instrument panel gleams against the sweat on her cheeks as she tries to evade the missile. It’s coming anyway, following us. I see it beyond her bowed head.

  Then something changes. The angle of the missile shifts. Its nose rises, its tail drops, and it’s not tracking us anymore. It shoots past our fuselage. I whip around to watch it, just as one of the Shikras blasts past. As the C-17 rolls in its jet wash and I clutch the seats to keep my feet, I glimpse the missile again, its fiery tail angling south.

  “He diverted it!” Ilima cries in disbelief, in joy. “The Shikra pilot diverted it!”

  The American fighter pilot who threatened to shoot us down hours ago finally comes back on the radio, but he’s not making threats anymore; he’s on the edge of panic. “Take evasive procedures, now, now, now!”

  I’m watching the receding missile—and I don’t want to believe what I’m seeing. It’s found a new target, homing in on the distant lights of Lissa’s plane.

  Ilima pulls us out of our dive as the merc comes back on the radio. “What the fuck did you do? What the fuck?” And then behind his breathless cursing I hear her one more time, my Lissa, her voice tinny with distance from the mic and pitched high in fear as she chants over and over, “I love you, Shelley. I love you. I love you. I—”

  A blazing yellow glare wipes out the night sky, illuminating our cockpit with the light of burning souls. Seconds later, the shock wave hits us. I hold on tight to keep from being bounced against the ceiling as flaming debris shoots past.

  Then it’s over. We’re flying level again, and all I see outside the windows are stars.

  On the radio, the fighter pilots are screaming accusations at each other. Someone is talking to them from the ground, telling them to hold their fire, don’t start another war, it was an accident. Colonel Rawlings is issuing orders over gen-com but I can’t understand what he’s saying because this is a dream. A dream.

  There’s a touch against my arm. “LT.”

  I turn around. Jaynie’s right behind me. Tuttle’s with her. She puts her hand on my shoulder, concern in her eyes. “There was nothing you could do for her, Shelley. It’s not your fault.”

  She’s half-right.

  I turn to Ilima. “Forget Cape Verde. Take us to Niamey.” My voice sounds a little rusty, but Ilima understands me anyway. She bites her lip and nods.

  Jaynie squeezes my shoulder. “Shelley? I’m going to take your gun, okay?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. She slips her hand inside my jacket and pulls it out of the pocket where I stowed it, then passes it quickly on to Tuttle. He turns and leaves the cockpit.

  If this is a dream, why can’t I wake up?

  • • • •

  I sit hunched at the top of the ladder with my head in my hands. After thirty minutes the skullnet succeeds in imposing an altered state on my brain that feels much like calm acceptance. Lissa is a wound that will never stop bleeding, but my need for her has been numbed and hidden behind a chemical curtain. I wipe my face on my sleeve and straighten my shoulders.

  We have a mission.

  I look out across the cargo bay—and lock eyes with Thelma Sheridan, still secured within her seat. She speaks—words I can only half hear over the C-17’s endless droning roar, but as her lips move, my overlay tags her with dialogue: The Devil will always demand your soul, Lieutenant Shelley.

  It’s not my soul she needs to worry about.

  Nolan, Harvey, Tuttle, Flynn, and Moon are all clustered several seats away from Sheridan. Moon has a bandage on his forehead; he must have bounced around when the shock wave hit. Perez is sitting in another fold-down seat, as far from everyone as he can get. That means only Jaynie and Ilima are in the cockpit.

  I rise, and make my way down the ladder.

  On gen-com, Flynn says, “He’s coming down here.”

  Nolan stirs. He puts hims
elf between me and Sheridan. “LT,” he says over gen-com, “you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” I move to step around him; he moves to stop me, his hand on my arm. We look at each other, trading unspoken questions. “I’m not going to kill her, Nolan.”

  “Good to hear it, LT, because then we’d have gone to a hell of a lot of trouble for nothing.”

  He’s not entirely reassured, though. As I walk over to Sheridan, he sticks close, just in case.

  Sheridan squares her shoulders, putting on a brave face as I approach, but I note the nervous tremor in her throat, the slight shift in her eyes. She speaks first, still full of bluster: “You think you’ve won, Lieutenant Shelley. You haven’t.”

  “I know that, ma’am.” I crouch in front of her, so it will be easier for her to hear what I have to say. “I want you to understand exactly what is going to happen to you, ma’am. We are flying to Niamey. When we arrive there, you will be turned over to government officials. They will see to it that you are held in a secure facility until your trial convenes and the evidence is heard that will implicate you in the events of Coma Day. And then you will spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  Even before I finish, she is shaking her head in denial. “No.” Her gaze is adrift. “This trial you want so badly will never happen. Never. All that you’ve done, all the dead, your very soul—gone for nothing.”

  She’s afraid. She wants to frighten me too, but I’m too numb to play that game.

  “You will be tried,” I insist. “You will be judged. And all those who helped you?” I lean a little closer. “I sure as fuck hope you give up the names of every single one of them to the tribunal. That way, when you’re rotting in prison, you’ll know you’re not the only one.”

  Her restless gaze settles on mine. “You’ve been used, Lieutenant Shelley. The Red has used you, and it will not protect you from the whirlwind that is coming.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think you’re right.”

  • • • •

  I head up to the cockpit, where I find Jaynie in the copilot’s chair, across from Ilima. She turns her seat half around. The dim light casts exaggerated shadows around her eyes as she studies me with her habitual questioning gaze. Are you going to keep it together, sir? Can I trust you not to blow your brains out?

  I drop into the seat diagonally across from her, drop out of gen-com, and pull on the headset. “What’s our current status and position?”

  “We’re about ninety minutes from Niamey, where we’ve been authorized to land. The American fighters were recalled before we reached the coast, but the Shikras are still with us, along with the media airliner.”

  The next words are hard for me to get out. “When I told you to delay, I didn’t know the Shikras were coming. I didn’t know it would work out like that.”

  Her gaze darts away, then returns with a suspicious glint. “What did you think would happen?”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to say because it’s naïve . . . but I thought it would all work out. Somehow.

  Jaynie doesn’t push it. Instead, like a good non-com, she fills me in. “The word is, Matugo sent the Shikras to protect us, in case the Americans decided to shoot us down.”

  “They did decide to do that.”

  She acknowledges this with a nod. “You were right about that. They were serious. If you hadn’t made us change course, they would have shot us down before the Shikras got here.”

  The Shikras diverted the missile intended for us—that’s the only reason we’re still here—but after the missile spared us, it locked on to Lissa’s plane. I want to believe that was an accident, that it was a failure in the weapon’s target-­acquisition rules.

  I lean back in my seat, all too aware of an exhaustion that touches every cell of my body. “That was a fucked-up end for episode three.”

  “That wasn’t the end.”

  She’s right, of course. “You ever wonder who wrote the script we’re following?”

  Jaynie scowls at the deck, thinking about this for a few seconds. Then she looks up again. “You’re thinking it’s the Red?”

  “Sheridan wants to believe this trial will never happen, but the Red wants it. That’s where this story is going.”

  Lissa got in the way of that. She was an impediment to the mission. While she lived, my loyalty was uncertain, locked up in a black box of indecision. Would I abandon her to deliver Thelma Sheridan to trial? Or would I betray my soldiers?

  I make my confession to Jaynie. “I still don’t know what I would have done, if Lissa had lived.”

  She cocks her head. “Why think on it? It wasn’t your decision. Even King David doesn’t get to debate God’s plans.”

  True enough. The Red has its own agenda. I turn to gaze at the night beyond the window, remembering something Lissa said to me weeks ago when she was figuring all this out . . . that measured against the billions of people in the world, no single one of us matters all that much. Not even her. Not in the schemes of the Red.

  Lissa.

  My memory of her is like a land mine in my brain. I tiptoe around it. I don’t get too close.

  Think of the mission instead: “Ninety minutes to go?” I ask, just to be sure.

  “About that.”

  “Okay. I’m going to make sure we’re ready.”

  • • • •

  The media plane lands ahead of us in Niamey. It’s 0307 local time. The temperature outside is eighty-two degrees American. We’ve all changed into the summer-weight uniforms we brought with us: gray camo, with no insignia.

  Our gear gets stowed in the packs—everything but our weapons, which we’ll leave behind in the locker, and our ammunition, which we leave out in the open. Our helmets get carried in their own padded sacks. We won’t be wearing them. We need to show our faces, and own what we’ve done. But we’re all still linked through our audio loops, and everyone is still wearing a skullcap, except me.

  When the gear is packed, we strap into our dead sisters.

  I put Jaynie in charge of our prisoner. There’s a distant look in Thelma Sheridan’s eyes, like none of this is real for her anymore. “You haven’t won,” she reminds me as Jaynie takes her arm. “There will be a reckoning.”

  “That’s what we want,” I tell her. “That’s why we brought you here.” I look at Jaynie. “Sergeant, you’ll follow us with Sheridan. Ilima and Perez will come last.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  The two body bags holding Kendrick and Ransom get moved to the center of the cargo bay, close to the ramp. I put Nolan and Tuttle between them. Harvey goes on the left, with Moon behind her; Flynn goes on the right behind me. For each of the bodies, we have an empty exoskeleton, neatly folded. I give those to Moon and Flynn to carry.

  “Ready!” I bark. “Kneel!”

  Six of us drop to one knee.

  “Secure grip!” We grasp the loops of the body bags with the arm hooks of the dead sisters. “Stand!” The bags sag only a little.

  I look to Perez, who is waiting by the ramp control. When I nod, he triggers the mechanism to lower the ramp, opening the cargo bay to night—the same endless night—pushed back by a ring of blazing lights.

  The light falls across lines of black-skinned soldiers in brown combat fatigues, arrayed in a perfect double vee. Whether they’re here to greet us or arrest us, I don’t know, but standing at the far point of the vee is a man I recognize from the pictures and video I’ve seen—my former enemy, Ahab Matugo. He’s a tall, distinguished-looking man, young enough that his hair is still black. He’s wearing a business suit, as most politicians do. Officials stand behind him, men and women, all of them formally dressed. Though it’s three in the morning, everyone looks wide-awake.

  Beyond the soldiers and the officials are the media, some of them no doubt disgorged from the plane that landed ahead of us.

 
I wonder how far this story will be allowed to spread and how the Red will try to play it.

  I wonder if there will ever be an episode four.

  If there is, I sure as hell hope I’m not part of it.

  With my gaze fixed straight ahead, I issue my last order as commanding officer of the ragged remains of our C -FHEIT LCS. “For-ward, march!”

  LINKED COMBAT SQUAD

  * * *

  EXTENDED EDITION

  IT’S BEEN QUIET FOR A couple of hours. I’m sitting next to Jaynie in the passenger cabin of a tiny chartered jet that’s taking us back across the Atlantic. Nolan is in a seat across the aisle, leaning up against the bulkhead, his eyes closed. Harvey, Moon, Tuttle, and Flynn occupy the seats behind us. The thrum of the engines is a constant background, but it’s blissful white noise compared to the C-17.

  We stayed in Niamey less than a day—just long enough to testify to the accuracy of the video records collected by our helmet cams and by my overlay. An attorney talked to us about our legal options—we could have applied for asylum—but we all chose to go home. At the least, our court-martial will make the reasons for what we did a matter of public record.

  I’m playing with the slider bar in my overlay that controls the intensity of feedback from my legs, seeing how high I can crank it before I start to sweat. It’s a mental exercise that takes a lot of focus, crowding the ghosts out of my mind.

  Beside me, Jaynie is sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, head tilted back, eyes closed. I assume she’s asleep, but I’m wrong.

  “How long are you going to sit there and torture yourself ?” she asks—a cogent, clear question so unexpected, I jump. “You should be working on a strategy to keep us out of prison.”