Callisto Deception

by John Read

  In minutes, we were rolling the first P-SV off the line. After admiring Kevin’s blue camo paint job, I climbed into the cockpit and grabbed the stick. It was tacky at first, but as I spun the ailerons and rudder through their paces, the action smoothed out nicely.

  The plane only had two instruments, an airspeed indicator and a fuel gauge. We didn’t need an altimeter since the ceiling was only about 300 feet, nor did we need any navigation aids since we’d simply be traveling due east.

  “Fill me up, Kevin.” I said. “I think this bird’s ready to fly.”

  Tayler, Johnson, Nash, and Singer stayed behind to assemble the next aircraft as it came off the line. Avro, Kevin, and Amelia pushed the completed P-SV to a nearby pasture that would serve as our runway.

  “Alright everyone, stand back,” I said, flipping a switch that opened the valves on the fuel tanks. I pulled the ignition chord, as if starting a lawn mower. Magnets spun around a coil creating a charge. As the cord whipped back into place, a spark leapt into the compression chamber.

  “Ignition!” Kevin yelled over the muted tornado exiting the nozzle. I reached for the throttle, pushing it forward. The plane slid on its landing skid and, at only fifteen knots, it wobbled into the air.

  I punched in the throttle and the rocket plane leapt forward to 100 knots, and then 200. Throwing the stick to the right, I pulled the plane into a steep left bank and cut the throttle. The plane bled off speed in the turn, and I settled into a manageable ninety knots, fifty feet from the Ring’s ceiling.

  With only half the gravity of Mars, and 100 times the air density, flying on Callisto was a breeze. I cut the throttle to zero and glided over Avro, Amelia, and Kevin. I spun the craft around, and touched down like a duck landing in the water.

  Opening the canopy, I said, “Everything checks out. I think we’ve got a winner.”

  In less than two hours, we had assembled all four aircraft. Nash and Singer gathered the spacesuits, hiding them under a camouflage tarp behind the printing station. The rest of us loaded our gear behind the rear seats. After a quick meal, we climbed into the cockpits.

  Kevin sat behind me in the blue plane. Amelia and Avro were in the red plane. Commander Tayler and Serene took the black plane, while Luke Singer and Jamaal Nash took the green one. Our ear buds allowed us to communicate.

  I led our little squadron, taking to the sky first. The planes functioned flawlessly, sailing smoothly through the air.

  “Keep it below one hundred fifty knots.” Commander Tayler said. “These babies burn through fuel like a kid drinking chocolate milk and I’d like to keep refueling stops to a minimum.”

  “How far should we go?” I said. We’d traveled perhaps ten miles already, and had passed two printing stations, which we assumed had access to the hydrogen pipes just like the one we’d started from.

  “It’s about four hundred miles until we reach the point where the original mining colony was,” Commander Tayler said. “If there are people living in this Ring, that’s probably where they’ll be. Any sign of civilization, any sign at all, and we turn around, and land. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir!” we responded.

  We’d been flying for half the day when we found civilization.

  I banked toward the center of the Ring where a river expanded into a lake. Something bobbed in the water. “It looks like we’ve got activity ahead,” I said. “Turning back now.”

  “I count three boats,” Tayler said. “Coming around.”

  We banked away, and kept low over the treetops on the northern side of the water. Halfway through my turn, I looked back. The boats had started their engines, wakes bursting into white existence at their sterns.

  “No indication of hostility,” Nash said. “But it does look like they’ve seen us.”

  “Affirmative, they see us,” Tayler said. “Orville, fly a wide arc; we need to know if they are friendly. Avro, check for settlements, then regroup east of the lake for landing.”

  Nash and I broke formation, following the coast until the lake narrowed back to a river.

  “They appear to be pleasure cruisers,” I said. “Two pontoon boats, and a speed boat. No uniforms, civilian clothes. People of all ethnicities.”

  Avro flew to the south west. “We’ve got a dock here, and a path leading to a house. I see a barn and several horses,” he said. “More houses, barns and stables.”

  “I’m guessing the mining corporation made a freeliving deal with the unions,” Serene said. “Paradise in exchange for forgoing a return trip.”

  “What else could it be?” I said. “The Ring is probably a secret retirement playground just like the Presidio on Mars.”

  “Roger that,” Tayler said. “Form up, and we’ll set down in that pasture by the docks.”

  “Copy,” I said.

  I looked to where the boats were heading east, away from the dock. Suddenly, several of them beached themselves on the bank, like whales in low tide. People jumped from the boats, running into the woods as if looking for cover.

  “Hey, guys?” I said. “Those people are scared of us.”

  “And did anyone notice those trucks?” Singer said.

  “What trucks?” Avro said.

  “Three o’clock, on that ridge,” Singer said, spitting words at double speed. “And two more, six o’clock on the north side of the lake.”

  I looked right, and saw the trucks sported green camouflage, blending in with the foliage. My eyes focused to see flashes of light emanating from their direction.

  A moment later, bullets whizzed by, striking the roof of the Ring. Artificial sky rained down, pelting my P-SV with shards of flexi glass.

  “Evade, evade,” Tayler said. “Low and fast.”

  I dove toward the water. The bullets followed, puncturing the lake at intervals. Cranking the control stick left banked the plane around a peninsula, granting me temporary cover from the nearest truck.

  Tayler pulled up and banked right. The bullets followed him, tracing an arched pattern of destruction across the glass sky.

  Avro banked left, hitting the throttle and accelerating back in the direction we came. “They sure are confident their bullets won’t breach the habitat,” he said.

  “But sure-as-hell, they’ll breach your fuel tanks,” I said.

  Singer and Nash headed south, and the truck-mounted machine guns followed them through the air. As the bullets tore the fibrous sky to shreds, large chunks of the holographic material pelted the cockpit like hail before a tornado.

  “Kevin, next time you design a plane, add some fucking guns,” Serene yelled over the radio.

  “Calm down everyone,” Tayler said. “Head west and regroup.”

  “I’m hit,” Nash radioed. “Plane is still functional, but I’ve got wind in the cockpit.”

  I flew in for a closer look; the area behind the pilot’s seat had taken several hits.

  “Singer, you okay in there?” I radioed. No response.

  “Luke?” Nash yelled from the front seat. “Can you hear me, buddy?”

  Flying wingtip to wingtip now, I could see into the cockpit of the other plane. The body inside leaned forward against the harness. “Tayler, John here, we’ve got a man down, repeat man down.”

  Tayler ordered, “Head back ten miles and set down near the printer where we just refueled. Copy?”

  “Copy,” we all said in sequence.

  I banked west and flew parallel to the wall at 200 knots. After about five minutes, I spotted the printing station and set the aircraft down.

  On the ground, Commander Tayler jumped from his cockpit, reached into the cargo hold and pulled out his rifle. He slung it around his back and ran towards Nash’s plane as he was touching down. Jamaal and Luke’s aircraft came to an abrupt stop. Nash tried to open the canopy, but it didn’t budge. Tayler pounded the canopy’s hinges with the butt of his rifle. The fuselage released its grip on the transparent dome. Tayler cranked it off, flipping it to the ground on the other side of the plane.


  Jamaal Nash sprang out and turned to his friend, then threw up.

  Kevin and I were next to show up at Nash’s plane. Tayler held up his palm as if telling us not to rush. Avro and Amelia landed nearby. They jumped from their cockpit and ran to meet us.

  Bullet holes punctuated the cockpit; three of them in the fuselage, and two in the canopy. Blood leaked from the bottom two holes.

  “Go print some more shovels,” Commander Tayler said. “Luke Singer is dead.”

  My mind reeled in confusion; it held a primal belief that Luke would be right back as soon as the program ended, a side effect of living in VR. This was not a VR battle. Luke is not going to rematerialize. Ever.

  26

  Nash was pretty shaken up, but stood guard with Serene while we dug a grave. We buried the body on a rise south of the printing barn. An orchard of blossoming apple trees blocked the spot from view. There were only a few feet of topsoil, so we dug as deep as we could, and then brought over additional dirt and grass to make a pile.

  When the hole was ready, Avro and I lifted the body from the plane, setting it in a fiber-plastic casket Kevin had printed. He had engraved the top of the casket:

  Luke W Singer 2040-2074

  RIP

  Nash and Serene went up to the gravesite to pay their respects, before meeting us back at the barn.

  Tayler looked at Nash. “Destroy the planes,” he said. “We don’t want them falling into the wrong hands.”

  Kevin was about to protest, but I held his arm and shook my head. He kept his mouth shut.

  “Print us some camo,” Tayler said to Kevin. “Civilian clothes as well in case we need to go undercover. Amelia, help him.”

  Kevin nodded and walked over to the station. Amelia followed.

  “There’s a recycolizer in the barn,” Tayler added. “Ditch anything you don’t want to carry. That includes your NASA jumpsuits. Wear the camo, but put the civilian clothes in your packs. We’ll stay hidden until we know what we’re up against. We move out in twenty minutes.”

  We left the barn, walking single file, looking like a platoon of rebels marching along a ridge. Each of us carried a rifle, ammo, and a backpack.

  “What now, Commander?” Jamaal asked. “There’s an army out there searching for us. I recommend we head back to Earth and return with reinforcements.”

  “No,” Tayler said. “This is what we trained for. Hell, we expected this! We’re pushing on.”

  I said, “This attack has H3’s name written all over it.”

  “And if we catch him, then what? Drag him around with a rope around his neck?” Serene said. Her voice was choked with suppressed grief, and sounded enraged.

  “We lock him in Singer’s ship. Without VR,” Tayler said.

  Serene gave a hard jerk of her head in assent. It was a suitable prison; without VR, the JJ’s cockpit was a prison cell. But solitary confinement was a mild punishment for his crimes.

  We crept through heavy brush high along a ridge, confident that our camo kept us hidden. Faces looked drawn and taut. Boots thumped the ground.

  Down in the valley, a gun boat wound up the river while soldiers on four wheelers rolled along the grasslands.

  We had walked nearly three miles when Tayler spoke. We could tell he’d been processing the situation, and we knew better than to interrupt his thoughts.

  “Listen up,” Tayler said. “I know you’re angry, but we can’t let that distract us from the mission. Right now, we need answers; that’s our priority.”

  “Those bastards killed Singer,” Nash said. “Revenge is my priority.”

  “No, it’s not. We need to know why they attacked us,” Tayler said. “That’s why we’re going to take a prisoner.” Tayler paused to tap his temple, and then said, “Visors.”

  We huddled in a grove while Commander Tayler opened the mission planning application. I tapped my temple and the augmentation interface appeared in front of me. Our visors had recorded topographical information during our flight, and the tactical computers used this information to create a map displayed on a virtual table.

  Known enemy positions appeared in red. The computer projected their routes with orange arrows. The four-wheeling patrols seemed to be following stream beds through the brush.

  “We’ll set up the ambush here,” Tayler said, pointed at a ridge. “Serene, use your sniper rifle to take out the vehicles. I’ll light them up with tracers.”

  “We’re going to ambush them with firecrackers?” Serene said.

  “It’ll keep them occupied,” the commander said. “Avro, Nash, sweep in and pick up a prisoner. John, Kevin, head to the southern wall and set up some charges on that ridge.”

  The commander used gestures to rotate the map, focusing in on a hill near the center of the Ring. He tapped a rock overhang shaped like a machine gun bunker from Omaha beach, and labeled it, HQ. Tayler continued, “Once everyone has completed their task, fall back to this location.”

  The scenario the commander described played out in front of us. Animated versions of ourselves ran through the simulation in fast forward.

  We watched as two friendlies, representing me and Kevin, moved to the south, avoiding several enemy positions.

  “Any questions?” Tayler asked.

  “Why am I always the decoy?” Kevin said.

  “Any serious questions?” Tayler asked

  “No, sir,” we said in unison.

  Kevin and I set out, running as fast as we could with our packs. We trusted our visors’ proximity alert system to notify us if we got close to the enemy. I double-tapped my wrist as I ran, bringing up a live feed from the others’ visors. We settled in, and planted the decoy chargers. I’d keep an eye on Serene’s feed, and detonate the charges to correspond to her shots.

  A squad of six soldiers on ATV’s drove single file in the narrow streambed, right where the mission software had projected. Kevin and I were clear of our decoys, and had begun to make our way back.

  I kept a hand over the detonator, hitting the digital trigger as Serene took her shots. She hammered the rear most vehicles first, driving the ATV into the dirt by the force of the round. The soldiers flew over their four-wheelers, landing on the rocky stream bed. She hit the leader in the leg, the bullet massing through his thigh, and hitting the fuel tank. His vehicle caught fire, and four of the other soldiers picked themselves off the rocks and stumbled over, pulling the injured man away from the flames.

  A lone solider held back, limping in pain toward the cover of a tree. He held his left wrist after having been thrown from his vehicle. He watched through the barrage of tracer fire as his comrades tended to their friends.

  Tayler lit up the divide between the lone soldier and the others, while Avro and Nash swept in. Avro wrapped his rifle around the man’s neck from behind, while Nash stripped him of his weapons. They dragged him backward into the woods, letting him collapse into unconsciousness.

  The charges Kevin and I had set continued to go off at intervals, making it appear that the sniper fire originated from the far hills. Despite being the first to complete our task, we had the farthest to go, and were last to arrive at the recon point.

  Avro, Amelia, and Jamaal met us as we approached the outcropping, which hid a series of small caverns.

  “The hostage?” I said.

  “Serene and Tayler are watching him, waiting for him to wake up,” Avro said.

  Amelia stood with her arms crossed. “According to the soldier’s patch, his name is Howard Steiner. His uniform says “Callisto Defense Force”. But, besides his watch, which we smashed so they can’t track him, there’s no other tech on him.”

  “We checked his wrist, no RFID either,” Avro added.

  “What about his weapons?” Kevin asked.

  “Basic stuff, printed rifle, no computers, no guided bullets, no visors,” Nash said.

  “All stuff that could have been made here, nothing from Earth,” Kevin said.

  “Anything else?” I asked.<
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  “Yeah, kid looks like he’s eighteen,” Amelia said.

  “Great, so we picked up a child,” I said.

  “Perfect age for a soldier," Nash said. "At eighteen you feel invincible and you follow orders. After twenty-five, your perspective changes. Following orders? Fuck that shit.”

  I said, “He would have been just a boy when he left Earth. Who would bring a kid into deep space? That’s just cruel!”

  “We’ll find out more when he wakes up,” Amelia said.

  The cave entrance was covered in ferns. We pushed them aside as we made our way in. Gurgling water trickled down at our feet. The cave was empty except for our gear.

  “Kevin, you’re doing the talking,” Nash said.

  “You’re going to let Kevin conduct an interrogation?” I said.

  Kevin looked pissed. “Dude, way to get them to blame the brown guy.”

  Amelia clarified, “The commander wants to hide our numbers, so we’re only sending in one person.”

  “Then why me?” Kevin said. “Is it my accent?”

  “It has nothing to do with your accent,” Amelia replied. “It’s because you’re the least intimidating.”

  “I can be intimidating!” Kevin said.

  I looked him in the eye. “No, you can’t.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Kevin asked.

  “We need you to listen to him,” Amelia said. “When he asks questions, answer yes or no, don’t reveal more than you have to. Got it?”

  “Yeah, sure, Mrs. Professional Hostage Negotiator.”

  Serene and Tayler came up behind us. “He’s begun to stir,” Serene said.

  “Kevin, get in there,” Tayler ordered.

  Kevin’s visor sent us a direct feed. We watched the interrogation overlaid in 3d above our cave’s floor. Howard Steiner sat on the floor, propped against a rock. His arms were tied behind his back, and a rope led from his wrists to a root hanging from the cave’s ceiling. When Kevin arrived, the prisoner stood, as if at attention, and walked forward to the end of his rope.