by John Lumpkin
“That’s me,” Rand confirmed.
“Staff Sergeant Tim Ruiz. We should go. The Hans have been putting more drones in the air. We lost a captain to one last week.”
“Lead the way.”
It was a five-klick hike to the base, and they didn’t talk much en route. As they walked, Rand spied a couple of poorly concealed, remote-controlled machine gun emplacements and wondered at the wisdom of putting hardware out in the open like that.
“Sergeant, who’s in charge at the cache?” he whispered to Ruiz.
“That’s complicated, sir,” Ruiz answered.
Great, Rand thought. “Don’t tell me the captain’s death means you are out of officers.”
“No, we have plenty, sir. But, well, things are in flux. We had a recent arrival, who outranks us all, but she’s in a bad way. She’ll want to see you, when we get there, sir.”
“All right,” Rand looked at Ruiz’s fatigues; he still had a few patches on it. “You were with the buck-twenty-nine?” The 129th Heavy Infantry Brigade had been based in Sycamore and was overrun during the initial Chinese invasion.
“Yes, sir, Special Forces, a Paladin driver. Though my suit don’t work no more, so I’m light infantry, just like everyone else.” He paused. “We’re close, now.”
They emerged into an alpine meadow, the sort of place one might take a daylong hike to discover. Blue and red wildflowers ran riot, and Rand spied a wide creek meandering through a thicket of quaking aspens.
“Nice spot to hole up,” Aguirre said. “Plenty of fresh water.”
Ruiz snorted. “Yeah, just don’t drink that without treating it first.”
“What, you guys can’t handle a little dysentery?”
“Not dysentery. Look, how do you think we keep the lights on?”
“Solar?”
“Nope, solar’s out, wind’s out – the capture platforms are too conspicuous.”
“Pebble-bed reactor?” Rand put in. “We use those for our surface-to-orbit lasers.”
“Nice try, but no. Fission puts out enough xenon that they could find us.”
Violet Kelley spoke for the first time since they met Ruiz. “Geothermal.”
“That’s right.”
”You guys hiding in some kind of mine?”
“Good guess, but no. Home is a network of old lava tubes. This part of the continent is riddled with them. Water’s too full of sulfur to drink straight up; you’ll smell it when we get closer.”
They reached the entrance ten minutes later. It was a five-thousand-year-old hole in the ground, created after a lava flow bubbled too close to the surface. They climbed down a rope ladder, and, for the first time in more than a year, Rand, Aguirre, Lopez and Kelley were safe among friendlies.
A squad of well-armed sentries was posted near the entrance. A few gave casual welcome-to-the-party salutes in Rand’s direction.
They walked about fifty meters down the main shaft, and the tubes branched and branched again. Well away from the entrance, artificial lighting colored the brown-and-silver rock a wan blue.
“Bathrooms are that way,” Ruiz said, pointing in one direction. “You can hose yourself off there, or if you want a bath there are some hot springs about a klick away.” He pointed in the other direction down the tube. “Stores are that way.” As they walked, Rand spied two women skinning an elk in one chamber.
“Fresh meat tonight,” Ruiz said, smiling for the first time. “That’ll be a nice switch. I thought we’d wiped out the herd.”
The sergeant waved to a corporal, who escorted Aguirre and Lopez to some quarters. Rand felt some fellow-hetero-male sympathy for Aguirre, who had taken up with Lopez more than a year ago; he thought it would be unlikely the base had enough individual chambers for them to share space as they had for some time, moving from one abandoned farmhouse to another.
The four of us have been together so long. But things are changing now. What are they going to do with three out-of-work artillery operators freshly arrived from the south? And what are they going to do with the NSS commando who isn’t within their chain-of-command?
They came to another chamber, the base’s makeshift clinic. Ruiz led Rand and Kelley to a curtained-off corner.
Rand tried not to grimace when the sergeant parted the curtain.
Colonel Regina Foster, the highest-ranking free American officer on Kuan Yin, lay on a bed inside. A white sheet covered her torso and abdomen. Her legs were blackened by burns from an orbital laser strike; her right arm and the right side of her face were bubbles of red flesh. She was reclined and awake; a mechanical arm kept a handheld suspended in the space above her.
Her alert eyes turned to Rand, Kelley and Ruiz; she issued a strained sigh, the sort of noise only someone in deep and constant pain can produce.
“New arrivals, Tim?” she croaked.
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at Rand.
Rand saluted crisply. “Second Lieutenant Rand Castillo, leader, Third Platoon, Bravo Battery, 34th Brigade. Arriving with two survivors from my SDA unit, ma’am, and an, um, irregular, formerly of the Marine Corps.”
Foster’s eyes flicked to Kelley.
“My name is Violet.” Rand picked up an edge of disdain in her voice, a mimicking of the sort of voice a child might use when introducing herself to a class. Kelley did that when she was pissed.
But if Colonel Foster picked up Kelley’s sarcasm, she ignored it. “Vincennes told us you were coming. Castillo, you’ve done well, so I’m going to field-promote you to a brevet captain. That will put you tenth in the chain of command here. We’ll give you a combat unit and include your people in it.”
Rand had been on his own for so long that he had almost stopped thinking about rank and promotion. “Thank you, ma’am,” he stammered. I’m back in the military hierarchy. Not sure I like it.
“Things are moving,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to lead the fight, but the Hans are getting lax with their security. We are going to hit them, and soon.”
She paused, coughed. One of the machines monitoring her let out a worried beep. “It always fills me with such pride when another one of you kids comes in from the wilderness. Listen to me, Castillo. We’re going to hit the fuckers. They’ve got one hundred seventy thousand Americans in that stinking camp in Sycamore. They took families from their homes, from our homes. Make them pay, Castillo. Make them pay.”
Rand said, “Yes, ma’am. Anything we can do to help.”
Colonel Regina Foster smiled and started to speak, but she coughed again, this time violently, and a medical tech led Rand and Kelley away.
San José, Republic of Tecolote, Entente
The loudspeaker in the wooden tower emitted a double tone, followed by a brief screech of feedback.
“The firing range is clear! You may unsafe your weapons!” it announced in Spanish. A score of men and women did so. There was a pause, punctuated only by a trainee’s sneeze, while the safety officer in the tower gave a long look at the firing line and the range, ensuring no one was at risk.
“Commence firing!” she said.
A ragged fusillade followed. Neil and General Naima watched as errant bullets kicked up sand around the targets, 25 meters downrange.
Naima shook her head. “Believe it or not, they’re getting better.”
Neil, no great judge of riflery, nodded politely. “Are they being trained as infantry?” he half-shouted.
“They haven’t been assigned yet; we’re taking a page from your Marines and trying to make everyone at least proficient with a rifle,” she said. “Anyway, thanks for coming out today. I wanted to talk to you privately about a few things. Let’s walk.”
Neil read the implied message. Like Dietrich’s, the firing range isn’t subject to Conrad’s authority. Or at least she wants me to think that. Tread carefully; this might be some kind of trap.
They walked down the beach until the din of the rifles quieted, and they could speak in something close to a normal voice.
“I’m so
rry you were caught in the disturbance last week,” Naima said. “It’s why it’s taken me so long to be able to meet with you; we’ve been too busy rounding up the ringleaders.”
“No problem,” Neil said.
Naima said, “As you may have guessed, Lawson declining those artillery rockets came as a surprise to me. He never used to be so … careful … about matters of state security. We’ve got a bonafide and growing threat from the rebels in the north.”
“Yes, you do,” Neil said. “How did General Vargas take the news?” I still need to find a way to meet the general. I’m relying too much on Naima as my conduit to the government.
“Not well, Neil. Not well. He cares about his troops. With good artillery, we have a significant advantage over the rebels, and we don’t have to expose our forces to an even fight with the other side.”
Neil nodded. “Right.”
“Vargas wanted me to ask you whether there was a way to … see those rockets delivered directly to our forces.”
There it is. Proposing an end around that defies the president’s wishes. How weak is his position? What’s the best choice here? What best serves the mission? The mission is to make Tecolote an ally so we can base our forces here. That’s up to Conrad … for now.
“I’m afraid we don’t have the ability to do that,” Neil dissembled carefully. “For one, our plan was deliver the weapons clandestinely via a commercial freighter or aircraft. We can’t really get them to forces in the field without them going through San José. And I’m not sure …”
“I understand,” Naima said quickly. “Vargas asked me to inquire. Now, I hope you realize this was a question about your capabilities …”
“… and not whether we’re willing to go around the president’s wishes,” Neil said. “Sure.”
We’re lying, both of us, Neil knew. Whether it’s for some microphone or a weak cover to guard against a future retelling when some truth software is listening, I don’t know. I wonder what she would have done if I’d eagerly offered to make it happen.
Naima said, “Now, about your request … ”
“I didn’t make a very good case for it in the message.”
Naima stopped walking, turned to face him. “You don’t need to. General Vargas and I are on board. It is my hope that Lawson will be more amenable to accepting your country’s aid if an expert like you can provide him an independent assessment of the threat from the rebel forces.”
“Well, thank you. Where do you want me?”
“District Seven, Colonel Abdulaziz’s battalion. Good unit, and Aziz is a good commander. And that’s as hot a sector as we have.”
That afternoon, Neil read the file Akita had provided about the rebels.
The Patriotic Union of Tecolote is an amalgamation of various groups that rejected the assumption of leadership by Lawson Conrad and his filibusters in 2129. It has an estimated strength of roughly 2,500 combat-capable personnel, traditionally organized as motorized and foot-mobile light infantry. It is primarily based in the highlands of the northern peninsula of Tecolote island, but its members have significant contacts with sympathizers in San José and Ciudad Bonifacio.
Beginning in 2140, the group underwent significant reorganization that is believed to be continuing at this time. Previously, military units were ad hoc in mission, and were generally organized along ethnic lines (e.g. Mexican, Moro, Tagalog, Punjabi), but they are now being mixed and trained to operate in complementary fashion, with standardized unit structures, equipment and operating procedures. These changes are credited to two circumstances: Chinese assistance, the full extent of which is unclear at this time, and the influence of Colonel Tan Pierce, one of Conrad’s filibusters who served as a senior officer in Conrad’s regime until his defection to the rebels nine months ago.
Neil jumped to the bio of Colonel Pierce. Naima never mentioned a high-level defector, and I guess Gomez and the others aren’t plugged in enough to know about him. He was young for a colonel – early thirties, according to the Japanese information, born on Reunion, like Conrad and Naima. Skilled infantry officer. Defected for “ideological” reasons, Neil read, but the bio provided no more detail.
Neil found a note tacked on to the end, in a different font:
Lieutenant Mercer, we have become aware that someone in the American consulate is communicating with Chinese intelligence officers in Tecolote. We don’t know the content of these communications, but you should not fully trust anyone you work with. They may try to extract information from you, seduce you and steal information, or find ways to hinder your efforts.
Kitsune
Neil reread the note several times. And here I was starting to think I was getting too paranoid. He couldn’t recall anything anyone had done that overtly supported the Chinese. Paul Layton and Andy Bonaventura seem like decent guys, just a bit distracted. Lindsay Trujillo and Martina Bandi have been extremely friendly to me, and Gomez displayed a lot of interest in my mission on San Jacinto, but what secrets linger from that that would benefit the Chinese? This, I got to take upstairs.
Neil went to his apartment to make the call. The delay in establishing the connection to Commander Raleigh was noticeable, a testament to the underdeveloped internet on Beta Comae Berenices’ fourth planet. But his image came through clear enough on Neil’s handheld, and his gravelly voice was only slightly tinny in his ear.
“Mercer. What do you have?” Raleigh sounded tired. He was outside, at some industrial site, underneath a giant yellow gantry set against a gray sky.
“Several things, sir, but one that may be critical.” He told Raleigh about the note.
“What’s your source on that?”
Neil said, “It’s Sakint.” The term was Space Force slang for Japanese-provided intelligence.
Raleigh smeared his right hand against his forehead in frustration. “I don’t know anyone in the consulate there, but I don’t have any reason to suspect them. Has anyone interfered with your work in any way?”
“No, sir.”
“The Japanese could have bad information, or they could be lying to drive a wedge between you and everyone else there,” Raleigh said. “Look, they have channels to provide this sort of thing to us, and a Space Force jaygee running around on Entente isn’t that channel. And even if the Sakis have a genuine concern, I don’t really know who to consult with. The NSS guy here in Ardoyne got sick and had to be taken off-planet, so I guess I can try the FBI attaché or the State counterintelligence officer in New Albion. For now, just keep your eyes open let me know if anyone is doing anything to get in your way.”
“Yes, sir,” Neil said. “But that may be a little difficult for a couple of weeks.” He described his plans to join the Tecolote army in the field.
Raleigh said, “That’s a better place for you than trying to do counterintelligence on your colleagues. Might build some good contacts in their armed forces, and you can see just how much help the Hans are providing them. The right kind of report might make this reluctant President Conrad of yours be a little more amenable to taking some free weapons.”
“That’s my thought, sir.” Neil wondered briefly if Raleigh was suggesting he inflate the rebel threat in whatever reports he produced. He hoped not; the commander always seemed straightforward and dedicated to the craft. Then again, the mission comes first …
Raleigh said, “In any event, I should tell you it’s going pretty well here; Ardoyne’s prime minister is on board with our proposals, and he just needs a few weeks to square away things with the loyal opposition. So if that all goes well, we can pull you out of Tecolote, and you can come help me here.”
“Okay,” Neil said.
“That a problem? From your reports, Tecolote sounds like a real shithole.”
“No problem, sir. Sorry, I was just a little surprised.”
“Things are moving,” Raleigh said. “Three days ago, another convoy from Earth arrived, including the transports Pontchartrain and Erie, with a battalion of Marines and anothe
r of Seabees. Presuming all the politics here goes as planned, we’re going to land the Seabees and upgrade Ardoyne’s dockyards to handle our forces. But because you’re heading into the field, I’d like to send you a little protection, unless you can think of a good reason not to.”
Neil thought that over. “Couldn’t they be used better somewhere else?”
“The Marines will pull security here, but things are peaceful, unless the Hans decide to bombard us, and then I don’t think they’ll miss one Marine too much.”
“Yes, sir.”
Raleigh nodded and cut the connection.
Combat Supply Cache Falcon, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
The war council was for captains and above; that meant nine officers were present, plus Violet Kelley and Staff Sergeant Ruiz, the latter the senior Green Beret at the camp. Rand looked the other officers over and saw none from his old brigade. Not that I knew anyone outside of my platoon well, but it would have been nice to know someone else who got out.
Everyone in the room but Ruiz sat. Rand recognized their table – a common style of dinner table found all over the territory, probably scavenged from a nearby farm.
Rand had been at the base for two days, and he had spent most of it learning his way around the base or being interviewed by a sergeant with an intel badge about the situation around Cottonwood. About halfway through, he had realized he was also being tested to make sure he was who he said he was. Apparently, I passed. He had been too occupied to ask Kelley what was bothering her so much.
A man in the gray work uniform of a U.S. Navy officer stood up.
“We haven’t announced this yet, but Colonel Foster died of her injuries late last night. After this meeting, everyone please inform your people. We’ll schedule a service in the next couple of days. It’s a difficult blow to all of us, I know.” He waited to allow the news to sink in before continuing. “I haven’t met a few of you yet, so I’ll introduce myself. I’m Lieutenant Commander Kyle DiMarco, formerly the XO of the Bowfin, before we scuttled near Cypress late last year. The survivors from the crew joined Colonel Foster’s group, and we’ve been fighting with her since.