by David Weber
“That isn’t funny,” Natalia Perez, the Minister of Human Rights, said. “Half our population is dead, and you think it’s a joke?”
“No, I’m just saying things were better when they were here,” Soares replied with a shrug. “I also know they’ll be back. A race that powerful? There’s no way they just ‘ran away’ when they were winning. Something must have caused them to focus their attention elsewhere—maybe they were losing a war on another planet and needed the forces—but there isn’t anything we did to cause them to leave. We didn’t make them leave, and we can’t prevent them from coming back. Why not have them come back now so they can drop some rocks on the heads of the Comando Vermelho?”
“While I do not want them back, that is, however, a subject I would like more information on,” Garçāo noted. His eyes moved to his Minister of Defense. “Do we have any idea where the demônios went? Do we know whether they’re gone not only from Brazil, but from the entire world?”
Diego Sanchez shook his head. “We can’t confirm it, but the aliens appear to have left all of Earth. We have no idea why, though.”
“I can confirm it,” Mateus Romero, Minister of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications, replied. “My people have been on the HF radio to stations across the planet. Not only have the aliens left Brazil, they’ve vanished entirely from Earth.”
“Do these stations say why that is?” Sanchez asked, obviously annoyed to be just hearing this for the first time. Garçāo turned back to the window to hide his own displeasure at not having been given the news earlier.
Romero chuckled. “I wish we knew. They’re saying creatures from our dreams and cinemas—vampires, believe it or not—appeared and drove them away. The Shongairi appear to have left Europe or Asia first, and now they’re gone from the Americas as well. What caused them to do so, though, hasn’t been revealed yet. Not to my satisfaction, anyway. That is why I haven’t said anything before now.”
A sound … or a feeling—or something—set Garçāo’s teeth on edge, and he looked up into the sky outside the window.
“Hold on, everybody,” he said, pointing up beyond where they could see from their seats at the table. “I think we have bigger problems, Diego.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think Edson was right,” Garçāo replied as a massive shape floated down softly to fill the entire window. “It looks like the demônios are back.”
The enormous aircraft set down in the street in front of the building—at least Garçāo thought it was an aircraft; it had wings and was generally aircraft-shaped, although it was over two hundred meters in length, or at least three times the size of the American C-5 Galaxy aircraft he’d ridden in once. Its multiple wheels found good purchase on the pavement on one side and the parched earth—thanks to water rationing—on the other.
“How does … How does it land like that?” Natalia Perez asked in a voice full of wonder. “The wings look like a regular airplane’s, but it’s coming down like a helicopter.”
Romero shrugged. “My science and technology folks looked at that. It must have some sort of counter-gravity technology that allows it to lift off and land, and then jet engines that propel it through the sky like an airplane. They would greatly like to take a closer look at it, but we haven’t been given the opportunity, for obvious reasons.”
Garçāo turned to Sanchez. “We’re going to need some of your forces here, as soon as possible.”
“You don’t intend for us to attack it, do you?”
“No, but I want to make sure we keep our people well back from it. I don’t want a member of the Comando Vermelho—or even one of your troopers—to do something stupid like shoot one of them and have them drop a bombardment round on Salvador. Our country’s suffered enough devastation already, I think.”
“That’s a good point,” Sanchez said. He turned and raced from the room, shouting orders to someone as soon as he was in the hallway outside.
“Well, I guess I should go welcome our overlords back to Brazil,” Garçāo said in the voice of a man going to his own funeral. He turned to look back a second, swore, and then hurried to the door.
“What is it?” Romero asked.
“It’s not the Shongairi!”
* * *
GARÇĀO HIT THE doors to the main entrance at a run, but then drew up short. He hadn’t been wrong—there was a human supervising several other humans. The supervisor—a woman—wore a flight suit with two silver bars on the shoulders. A tall blonde, she was speaking English to the two, no four, men who were positioning things at the top of the craft’s ramp. She stood at the top of the ramp pointing to something. Garçāo’s English wasn’t very good, but it sounded like—could it be true?—they were getting ready to start unloading things from the craft.
He approached the woman at a more dignified pace.
“Boa tarde, Capitão,” he said in a loud voice.
“Good afternoon,” the woman replied in perfect Portuguese, although she appeared to hesitate slightly, as if having to think about the words. “Although I’m a lieutenant, not a captain. I’m in the U.S. Navy; it’s the same insignia but different rank.”
“I see, thank you,” Garçāo said with automatic courtesy. “I apologize for my error. But—” his voice sharpened “—how is it that you have this … this…” He pointed to the craft but ran out of words to describe it.
“The Starlander?” The woman smiled. “I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but we made it. It was faster to redesign and build them new than to rework the controls for humans on the ones we’d captured.” She held up a hand when Garçāo started stammering again. “Trust me, I’ll tell you all about it after we get it unloaded.”
“You are the pilot of this … this Starlander?” Garçāo asked, unable to help himself as the rest of his cabinet gathered around him, staring up at the woman in awe. Seeing them gawk at her made him realize he was doing the same, and gave him the ability to shut his mouth.
“Actually, I’m the mission commander on this run,” the woman replied. “I have two nugget pilots up in the cockpit holding it up on its counter-grav system so I don’t put holes in your parking lot. Like I said, though, they’re nuggets, so I don’t want to have them do it too long. Besides, we have two more ships orbiting overhead with food and supplies, and I need to get them down here, too.” She paused, looking at their faces. “What?” she asked after a moment.
“A nugget is flying this craft? What kind of a nugget?” Romero asked, and the woman chuckled.
“Sorry, that’s slang for a new pilot. Like a diamond, my two pilots need a little more polish—and perhaps some additional pressure—to become fully-qualified.” She waved them away from the ramp. “Now, if you’ll move, I’ve got an awful lot of aid onboard to unload.” A stream of people began issuing forth from the craft’s cavernous interior. “Oh!” the woman added, “I also have some other folks onboard to help you.”
“Who are they?” Garçāo asked, unable to keep the wonder out of his voice.
“A variety of professionals,” she replied. “Health professionals, mostly, but some logistics folks to help distribute what we’ve brought you. There are also a few military and security people to help you work on your defensive posture. And there are a few other … specialists … too. That’s about it.”
“That’s it?” Garçāo asked, incredulously. “That is more than we deserve, and far more than we could ever have hoped for! Who do we owe for all of this … this … largesse?”
“All of this is from President Howell in the United States,” she said, waving to the supplies and people moving down the ramp. “He’s hoping you’ll meet with him soon to discuss some ideas he has for the way forward.”
“I would very much love to,” Garçāo replied. He looked down at his shoes. “I’m afraid that I don’t have transportation to get me to the United States, however, nor does the security situation here permit me to travel at the moment.”
�
�The security situation?” the woman asked as two men and two women in flight suits came to stand behind her in the shade of the cargo bay. “Do you mean the Comando Vermelho and the other gangs that are running roughshod over your country?” Garçāo nodded, and the woman gave him a smile that chilled his blood, despite the hot summer day. “You won’t need to worry about them much longer. My friends—” she indicated the people standing behind her “—are here to take care of them.”
. IX .
AURORA, MINNESOTA,
UNITED STATES
Lewis Freymark smiled as he heard/felt the Shongair Starlander-class shuttle go past overhead, and he threw his jacket and outerwear on quickly. Even though he’d been overflown by the shuttles on several occasions now, he still couldn’t determine whether he heard the vibration of the counter-grav, just felt it, or some combination of the two. Actually, he was pretty sure it had to be a combination, since the counter-grav put off some kind of waves that were a cross between a vibration and a sound. It was really hard to describe, but the feeling wasn’t; it set his teeth on edge whenever they flew past.
Freymark wasn’t a military person, but even he could see some of the disadvantages of using such a system in combat. Although the massive craft was quiet—far quieter than any six-hundred-foot-long airplane had any right to be—the fact that you could hear/feel it coming undermined its stealthiness badly. Of course, it had been built by the Puppies for use against cultures armed with bows and arrows, so that characteristic had never been a problem for them. Until they came to Earth, anyway. That brought a smile, something he found himself doing more of recently.
He was still pulling on his second glove as he rushed out of the pre-fab hut that had become his home. He closed the door quickly behind him. Although the material the hut was constructed of insulated as efficiently as a double-walled, vacuum-filled thermos, holding the door open let the Arctic air sweep through the little structure like an icy hurricane. Aside from that one drawback, the hut was miraculous. Even a small heater was enough to keep them warm despite the minus-six-degree temperature outside.
It was too small for a family of seven—his six plus Alex Jackson—in pre-Shongairi terms, but it was a blessing he and Janice thanked God for every day. They’d made do, learning to sleep together like cordwood. It had probably brought them closer together as a family, or at least he liked to think it had. As long as Stevie and Frankie didn’t have to sleep next to each other, anyway. Elbows tended to jab when that happened.
He’d heard the hut could keep you just as cool in a Sahara summer with its micro air conditioner—part of the standard equipment delivered with it—installed. Amazing.
He shivered as a chill wind found its way down his neck while he raced over to where the ramp was coming down from the back of the craft. Several people bundled up in layers of clothing started down the ramp, but paused when the cold air hit them. Freymark chuckled. While you could protect yourself from the worst of the cold, mostly, you never really got used to it.
The group was just starting to edge back up into the cavernous belly of the lander—and impeding the people trying to unload the supplies within—when Freymark reached them.
“Hi!” he called, and the group turned back to him. “Can I help you?”
One of the group pulled down a scarf that wound around a balaclava that protected the owner’s head. If the lipstick was any indication, the owner was female, a fact that was confirmed when she spoke.
“I hope so,” she said. “I’m Doctor Sarah Rollins with the UNC Children’s Hospital System. We’re supposed to be here to check out your kids and any young adults who might need medical assistance.”
“That’s great!” Freymark replied. “Thanks for coming; we’re really glad to have you. I’m Lewis Freymark, the leader of this community. If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you somewhere warmer.”
“That would be … brrrr … lovely,” she said, shivering as another gust came up.
“Follow me then,” Freymark replied, “and try to stay close.” He wasn’t expecting more snow today, but that didn’t mean nature wouldn’t throw it at him, anyway. The way the weather worked in northern Minnesota, you could go from sunny to a white-out in what seemed like seconds.
He led the group through the foot-deep snow to the former high school school building on the southeastern side of town that now served as the area’s combination relief headquarters and medical facility. Once they were indoors and everyone had removed enough clothing to be able to talk, he smiled and said, “Hi everyone, and welcome to sunny—if not warm—Aurora, Minnesota. I’m Lewis Freymark.”
“You’re the mayor of this town?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” Freymark’s cheeks reddened slightly. “As of about a month ago, anyway. I happened to be the first person the relief effort met when they arrived here, and their leader, a Major Torino, told me to take charge of where things needed to go. After they left, the residents here decided to make me mayor so I could continue organizing the relief efforts. I think it was just so I’d be the one outside in the cold all the time. It wasn’t something I wanted, but as a refugee here, myself, it wasn’t like I had anything better to do.”
“Is this the Aurora High School?” one of the other people, a tall, serious-looking man asked.
“No, it’s not,” Freymark replied. “Or not anymore, anyway. We moved our headquarters down here because this was the only place with a big enough cleared area to land your Starlanders. This building was empty, since they built the new high school up by the lake, and we’re using one wing to administer the relief efforts and the other as our clinic.”
Freymark turned back to Dr. Rollins. “I take it your group is all doctors?”
“We do have one oral surgeon with us, in case he’s needed,” she replied, “but you’re right; most of our team are doctors from the UNC Children’s Hospital. We brought a variety of specialists with us—as well as enough equipment to set up a small operating room, if required—and enough medicine to start a small pharmacy.” She chuckled. “We thought we had more equipment than we’d be able to transport, until we saw the size of the beast that brought us here. There were teams from UNC, Duke, and Wake Forest, and we didn’t even fill up half that thing.”
“There are other teams coming here?” Freymark asked. He looked around, wondering where he would station the other groups. “They only told me to expect your group.”
Dr. Rollins chuckled. “Unfortunately, no matter how badly you have it here, I’m sorry to say you haven’t cornered the market on misery; those other groups were for other areas. We dropped them off on our way here.”
“Well, I’m certainly thankful to have you here in Aurora,” Freymark replied, his cheeks darkening further. “My daughter is one of the people Major Torino’s first supply run saved; there’s no telling how many people are alive today because of that.”
“Great,” Rollins replied. “Well, if you’ll show us where we are supposed to set up, we’ll see how many more people we can save this time ’round.”
. X .
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA,
UNITED STATES
“Mind if we sit down?”
The pleasant contralto pulled Dave Dvorak out of his reverie, and he looked up, his mouth full of food.
“Hmpf?” he asked indistinctly, then felt his face heat as he saw Doctor Fabienne Lewis and Brian Jacobi. They held trays of food, and the sable-haired IT secretary shook her head with a smile as his eyes refocused on the world around him. He swallowed and tried again.
“Sorry. What?” he asked more clearly.
“I asked if you minded if we joined you.” Lewis held her tray with one hand and waved the freed hand at the other tables in the food court, all of which were full. “The more government comes online, the harder it gets to find somewhere to eat.”
“Sure. I mean, yes—have a seat, please.” Dvorak stood and pulled out one of the small table’s other chairs for her with his good arm while Jacob
i set his tray on the small round table and pulled out his own chair. Lewis smiled in obvious amusement, but Dvorak didn’t care. He was a Southern boy, and his mama had taught him about holding chairs for ladies.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was kind of lost in thought.”
“I’m sure the new Secretary of State has lots of things on his mind.”
“Not any more than everybody else, I expect,” Dvorak replied, resuming his own chair as she and Jacobi unwrapped their silverware from the paper napkins. Portion sizes were much smaller, even here in Greensboro, than they’d been before the invasion, but Lewis dug into her chicken and dumplings with obvious gusto.
“Everyone has a lot on his or her mind just now,” he continued, nibbling on one of his own French fries. “I’m no different! It’s just that my own biggest worry—and frustration, really—is more internal than external. I’m not what you might call convinced that I’m the best person for the job.”
Lewis swallowed a bite of dumpling and nodded sympathetically.
“I totally get that. As a matter of fact, I said the same thing when the President decided to make me his chief scientific advisor, in addition to ‘only’ his IT secretary.”
“You did?” Dvorak cocked his head. “I can see that’s a pretty significant expansion, but at least you were a scientist by trade before the Puppies!” She had, in fact, been pulled out of the private sector, where she’d been one of the better—and more brilliant—R&D types specializing in advanced AI applications. “Sure, there’s a lot more to being in charge of all ‘science’ than just the info tech stuff, but at least you’re still in the ballpark!”
Lewis chuckled.
“Spoken like a true historian—as in, not like a scientist, Mister Dvorak,” she said, “because what you just said shows that you don’t know the depth and breadth of what’s involved in being the science advisor. It’s a lot more than just extrapolating from the one little corner I know into all the areas I don’t. And when you throw in the fact that he wants me to decide on which parts of Hegemony tech to prioritize for adaptation when we start pushing beyond the immediate imperatives of our rescue efforts.…” She sighed. “It’s exhausting, and I had almost no idea where to start.”