by Jack Colrain
“What riot? If I hadn’t screwed up there, there wouldn’t have been any riot. He’s dead because of me, twice over.” He paused sullenly. “And somebody would have brought down Kebbell. You were there, and Chief Hammond… Hell, you two would probably have been fine, and Bailey, too, if you hadn’t been stuck with a guy who’d only wanted to save one family and couldn’t even do that.” She remained silent, but he could sense her impatience and dismay through their link. “There’s no fairness in it,” he added.
“You don’t need me to tell you that life never has been fair. It’s—”
“Then why bother?” he cut her off. “No, don’t answer that; it’s the wrong question. Why did I bother?”
“Because you’re probably a good man, some of the time, when you’re not blinded.”
“A good man doesn’t let people get killed.”
“A good man helps his friends and family to be happy, because that makes him happy.”
“Happy? I’ve heard that one before. Yeah, I wanted Cody and Chloe to be happy, but guess what? Happiness is bullshit. There’s no such thing as happiness, just the occasional moments of bliss.” The words had sounded strangely familiar as they’d slithered from his mouth. Hadn’t he spoken of bliss to that Mozari-worshipper back in New Haven? That hadn’t worked out any better, and the memory set his teeth on edge. “The best anyone can hope for out of life is a moment of bliss from time to time; everything else is a stupid fairy tale for kids.” He waved at the windshield. “Let’s just start the car already and go.”
Hope’s mind recoiled from the thought he held of the Mozari-worshiper, Lucretia—and Jill, his best friend’s wife. The flash of pain and anger that radiated from her was reflected in her eyes, and he couldn’t help being a little shocked. Belatedly, he realized how she must have taken those words, and interpreted them. He wanted to say that he hadn’t meant his interest in her was purely carnal and selfish, because he didn’t think it was—at least, he hoped it wasn’t—but the words wouldn’t come. The damage had been done anyway. “I didn’t mean—” He shook his head. “It probably just proved my point about there being no point in trying to be happy, or trying to bring it.”
“You’re right,” Hope said, tightly, holding back the anger from her voice that she couldn’t hold back from her mind. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel even though the car had yet to move. “Of course, happiness is fleeting. All reactions are fleeting; all those feelings come and go, because that’s the point of reactions. They’re reactions, not states of being.”
“They’re emotions. Emotions come and go.”
“Fear, anger, sadness, those are emotional reactions, not the emotions themselves. The reactions come and go, but the emotions that cause them—love, hate, honor, respect, honesty, integrity, courage—those stay. If reactions didn’t come and go, they wouldn’t be reactions. They would be who you are. But they’re not who you are, unless you lose yourself and let them speak for you, and let them guide you. But if you’re guided by your reactions, then you’ve given the controls to yourself over to everyone else, who can make you dance as they see fit, and take away your happiness and your damned bliss. But the things that stay are the things no one can take away.”
He glowered, wishing she’d just leave him alone for a moment, but he also knew she was right.
“Those are the things I always liked about you. The things I always admired about you.” She thumped the steering wheel with sudden violence. “Damn you, those are the things that had me fall for you.”
He squeezed his eyes closed, not wanting to see the anguish on her face. Maybe if he squeezed tightly enough, the world would go away, he thought. He could live with just the blackness and her presence next to him, but now he could only see himself alone with his bitterness.
“So, are those things all lies?” she pressed him. “Were they just the masks you wear, to disguise a violent drunkard, putting on a show for the ladies? Because that drunk I will walk away from without a second thought. And never look back. But you’ll be free to let people poke your reactions to make you dance, and maybe some of them will occasionally give you a moment of so-called bliss in amongst it all.” She paused. “From what you’ve said about Cody, and what I saw of Chloe, that’s not what they would want.”
Neither would Elizabeth have wanted that, Daniel knew. In fact, if anybody did share that view as a way of life to follow, it was probably Jill. Wasn’t that why she’d seduced him that one time, knowing how much it would needle at him after? She had probably hoped that he would have confessed to Cody, and thus made him as well as Daniel twist and dance. He had gotten so used to that twisting that it had come to feel easy over the past two or three years. It was easier to react when someone or something tried to elicit it, rather than stick to his own course.
“I’m not a drunk,” he said at last.
“What?”
“I’m not a drunk.”
“You give a good performance of one.”
“Look up my Army medical records, and you’ll find no alcohol damage. I sometimes walk home a little tipsy. Or used to, before the Mozari. Never caused any trouble, just slept it off. I’m sure General Carver can get a hold of my police record if she wanted, or the court documents for yesterday.” He sighed, “Maybe when we get back to the Farm—”
“We won’t. We’ve both been recalled.” She hesitated, and he could feel her upset.
“To Camp Peary?”
There was that hesitation again, and she nodded with a troubled look. “For you, yes.”
“For me? What about you? Where are you—”
“Beijing,” she said quietly, in almost a whisper.
Daniel thought for a moment that he was imagining things “Beijing! What the hell?”
“My government is withdrawing from the International agreement. They also have political issues with what happened in Boston—and no, don’t you fucking dare say it’s your fault. They have always wanted an excuse, and they want to use it as an example of an intolerable policy.” Daniel couldn’t help thinking that that sounded a little hypocritical, and her expression betrayed that she heard it, too. “I think it is a mistake. I think probably they prefer the idea of having a suit-capable pilot available in case of need.”
“I couldn’t really blame them for that.”
“I have to take you to the Amtrak for Williamsburg. Someone will collect you for the Farm there. Then, I have to get on a plane for San Francisco, and then Beijing.”
He saw himself alone in the dark again, then. With no warm presence beside him that he could live with. After all they’d come through, how could he just do without? He didn’t need to ask now why she had been upset at his rant about happiness. “Tell me I’ll see you again,” he pleaded.
She allowed herself the slightest of smiles, and leaned forward. Her lips on his were fleeting, but her grip on his hand was tight. “You don’t need me to tell you that.” Now, finally, she started the car. “It’s something you already know.”
San Francisco, CA.
Hope Ying had a pleasant flight to San Francisco International, and not too long to wait before her China Airlines flight to Beijing drew up at the terminal. When the staff at the gate announced that it was time to board, she grabbed her hold-all and started towards the boarding ramp.
“You’re not leaving here with that suit.” Hope turned to see General Carver approaching, flanked by two USAF police.
“Aren’t I?” She didn’t bother to deny that she was still wearing her Exo-suit. After all, it was made to her DNA, and no-one else could wear it.
“Remove it, or it’ll be removed by force.”
Hope smiled gently. “And how will you do that? Activated, you can’t see me.” The airmen drew their pistols, aiming for Hope’s torso. “Really?” she asked. “You know those rounds will not hurt me while I’m wearing the suit. You did see what it takes to damage one in Boston, so unless you brought a flamethrower to this crowded concourse...”
> “You’re trying to steal classified military technology from the US,” Carver pointed out.
“No, I am being transferred with equipment that was made specific to my physiology. Look at it this way: Of all the people wearing the Exo-suits, there is only one pilot. Me. Don’t you want to know how its abilities can be used by a pilot in air combat?”
Carver grimaced. “Who’d maintain it?”
“We have our own scientists.”
“You’re not taking the railguns either.”
“You’re right. I didn’t bring them. I’m returning to flying, and so I don’t need a railgun. But, if I did, you are quite aware our scientists already have three from a Mozari pod that landed in Shannxi.”
Carver gestured to the airmen to lower their weapons. “Let’s make a deal, Captain Ying. Not governments, just you and me. Your flight will wait.”
Thirty-One
Camp Peary, VA.
Only as the calendar approached a lonely Valentine’s Day did Lieutenant Daniel West notice that the nameplate on the door now read “Lt. West” instead of “Chief Hammond.”
It looked as strange to him as it felt. Two new men had arrived around Christmas: Unteroffizier Dieter Hulsmann, of the German Bundeswehr’s 401st Mechanized Infantry, and ginger
Englishman Marty Beswick of the 539 Assault Squadron, Royal Marines. Daniel had, of course, run them until they’d puked. Since then, however, both men had settled in well, and their training had progressed quickly.
Daniel was trying to make sense of Gray’s requisition forms from the Armory when General Carver next visited, letting herself into Hammond’s—now Daniel’s—office with only a brisk knock as warning. “Heads up, Lieutenant. You have another assignment, and it’s one you’ve been waiting for.”
Nodding, Daniel summoned Team Hammond to the briefing room so that Carver could continue there, where everyone would fit more comfortably.
“This mission is one that Team Hammond is uniquely suited for,” she began.
“Team Hammond?” Beswick asked.
“We’re keeping the name of the unit’s original commander, Keith Hammond, who was killed in action recently,” Evans explained to the Englishman. “We’re Hammond’s... team.”
“The US government,” Carver resumed, “has been tracking the Mozari ship with spy satellites for some time now. It’s currently parked behind the dark side of the moon, where it has been for most of the past year since its arrival. The mission brief is a lot simpler than the execution will be.”
“They usually are, Sir,” Daniel acknowledged.
“Your primary mission objective is to infiltrate the Mozari vessel and secure it so we can learn more about their technology, and the systems they’ll be bringing to bear against us. If seizure of the vessel isn’t possible, gain what intel you can and destroy the ship. If that isn’t possible, learn all that you can about it and them, and sabotage it as best possible.”
Daniel raised a hand to interrupt her. “If it comes to destroying the Mozari vessel, how exactly is that supposed to be done? If their major weapons are simply nickel-iron asteroids, we can’t really set one off, and we don’t know what powers the ship...”
“That’s where the learn and sabotage option comes in, Lieutenant.”
“I understand that, Sir.”
Despite her response, however, Carver nodded some level of concession as she continued. “To some degree, though, you’re correct. We don’t know for certain how they generate their power, but we have managed to get a few ideas on that from the Library Cube, and from reverse-engineering the power source for the railguns. We also know from those sources that they have some form of artificial gravity on their larger ships, so footing should be relatively normal.
“Your team will also take as cargo six tactical nuclear devices, no larger than suitcases—to be used to do as much damage as possible if securing control of the vessel proves impossible. Whatever generates the Mozari power, it’s unlikely that detonating a nuke next to it will be healthy for its operation.”
Beswick hummed to himself. “If it was a Navy boomer, all we’d have to do is jam a missile door and start a launch procedure so that the rocket engine would cause a catastrophic explosion.”
“Perhaps something similar will be possible.” Carver dropped a thick binder onto the table. “This is the briefing folder for the operation. Make sure all of your team have studied it carefully: It covers everything we know or are fairly confident of in the matter of the Mozari technology, the atmospheric environment you’re likely to face, and so on.”
“Will we even be able to breathe aboard the Mozari vessel, or will we need respirators, NBC gear, or…well, even spacesuits?” Evans asked.
“We can’t be sure, but according to what we’ve succeeded in gleaning from the Mozari Library Cubes, we believe you’ll be able to breathe their air.
“On Sydney Day, they shot down all the missiles we launched at them,” Kinsella said, “with some sort of point-defense system. What odds do we have of even getting near the damned ship?”
“Better than you might expect, actually. For one thing, those defense systems only fired upon warheads. They’ve ignored various satellites and probes directed towards their vicinity, as well as the ISS.”
Daniel commented, “So, they can tell when something’s carrying a threat payload, like a nuclear warhead, fine. But what about people? If they can detect that a shuttle is carrying living organisms—”
“They can. We’re certain of that.”
“…then can they tell whether those people are hostile or not? In fact, is there even a distinction? I mean, the bastards declared war on the entire planet, so they must be pretty confident that anyone from here is going to be against them.”
“That we’re less sure of,” Carver said, “but they’ve continued to ignore the ISS, and the closest observation we’ve gotten of their current position is from a manned Chinese orbit of the moon, which the Mozari also ignored even though the ship came within a couple hundred kilometers of them.” She tapped on the desk. “So, has everybody got that?”
“Board an alien spaceship and, ah, mess it up,” Bailey said. “I think we’ve got that.”
Beswick shook his head in wonderment. “If this was any other unit, I’d think you were all talking bollocks, but... you’re proper hardcases, ain’t ya?”
“Hardcases?” Daniel echoed. Then he thought about how the suits hardened when hit, and how, yeah, they had become hard men and women, thanks to Chief Hammond’s training. “Yeah. We are hardcases. Hammond’s Hardcases.”
Icarus City, Kenya
One hundred and forty miles or so northeast of Nairobi, a modern residential suburb had grown up around a set of huge, square block-like buildings in the eastern foothills of Mount Kenya. The town had no civilian name; officially, it was known simply by the dry-as-dust appellation, the International Equatorial Launch Platform. Unofficially, its constructors and staff called it Icarus City; behind their backs, civilian residents, and especially the kids of its staff, called it Camp Catapult.
What most surprised Daniel about the view, as the C-17 descended over the town, was not the prettiness of it, nor the speed with which it had sprung up in less than a year, but the vast, straight line that stretched out from the eastern side of the town and sliced across the hills that separated Kenya’s eastern district from its coastal district. It was a gleaming blade of metal far longer than any runway in the world; even seen from this altitude, it cut clean through miles and miles of savannah, through the desert beyond the eastern hills, and into the horizon. It looked like an endless, deadly straight railway line, but Daniel knew better, thanks to the briefing the Hardcases had been given.
General Carver had accompanied Hammond’s Hardcases to Icarus City, and now accompanied them on a tour of the launch facility. Everyone looked awed at the scale of the project site. “You’ll be accompanied,” Carver told them, “by some other specialists, who, although they don’t have the
blood protein allowing them to wear the Exo-suits, are cleared for knowledge about them. They also have specialist experience that will be necessary for the mission.”
Carver introduced several members of an entourage she had brought with her. First was a US Army Colonel: “This is my new liaison officer, Colonel Barnett.” He and Daniel saluted each other. Then there was an older man, tanned and fit, with iron-gray hair and a weather-beaten face. Daniel thought he could easily be cast in some kind of seafaring drama; he wasn’t quite old enough to be in The Old Man and the Sea, but he had that air about him. “This is Colonel Horowitz, USMC. He’s flown several space shuttle missions in the past, and so he will be your pilot for this trip.”
She then indicated the two shaven-headed guys who, out of uniform, looked like henchmen in an action movie. “Henshaw and Gerrard are Navy SEALs. Along with your own man Beswick, they’re specialists in infiltration of both hardened sites and ships. We don’t know for sure if that will really translate well to breaking aboard the Mozari ship, but we figure there’s no harm in having them along.”
“They’re not able to use any of the Mozari tech?” Daniel clarified.
“They can use some that we’ve reverse-engineered and manufactured ourselves. The suits they’ll wear have some similarities to yours in limited ways, but they won’t have the full range of abilities because they’re not bonded by DNA and brainwaves. Essentially, they’re better Zoombang outfits. They’ll be protected, but not enhanced in any way. They’re also fully trained in and conversant with nano-blocks for use in boarding, demolitions, and construction under combat conditions.” The tour continued inside a huge hangar building constructed under a hill. It was mercifully cool there, in comparison to the scorching desert surface.
“Meet your new ride,” Carver said proudly. “This is the Avenger.”