Pyro Canyon was in their DNA. Their DNA was in Pyro Canyon. And the Sheikers were threatening both, imminently, without realizing it.
Then there were the kids.
“I heard Trillion lost his protégé at the Vike. A lad called Barani.” They’d chatted about Trillion and Lyssa Baltacha several times on their confidential podnet channel before deciding to return to Altimere. Without that disobedient duo—Trillion was undoubtedly in line for a court-martial once his IPR superiors caught up with him—this day might never have come. It was a strange gamble the errant couple had tried, with no precedent, no concrete plan if it worked, and a wonderfully selfless motive. The rarest kind, in fact. Because it was the right thing to do.
Brink scowled at her. “Not Barani from the park? The little cutis nova?” She shrugged. “Jesus Christ, I was playing games with that kid only the other day,” he went on. “So he was one of Trillion’s?”
“Must have been his nudger.”
“Ah, well, that figures. Lad did seem to be fishing, about us, about Perihelion. Well, well, what do you know—the IPR strikes again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Trillion and his raker plucked us like banjos in a boozy border town. They must have known—”
“Don’t be thick.” If there was one thing she’d never been able to stomach about Scott—all right, if she was honest, there was a long list—it was his penchant for lazy reasoning away from his flying. Fella was easily the best decision maker in a cockpit she’d ever come across, but once he hopped out, he seemed content to let his needle tap zero far too often, to let others do the heavy lifting in terms of number crunching, combat strategies, managing those under his command. A brain like his should not coast by on neutral. “Trillion doesn’t know a thing about Pyro Canyon, so he can’t have known which buttons to push to get us to come back. He got lucky with the timing, that’s all. His bullshit propaganda stunts had nothing to do with it.”
His turn to shrug. “Same old Jane. Thinks she’s beyond anyone else’s control.”
“Same old Scott. Still thinks head-butting the bar is the way to cure a hangover.”
“Hey, I woke up feeling like a million credits, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, in the infirmary the next day, high on meds.”
“Improvisation, honey. You can’t teach it.”
“In your case, thank God.”
* * *
Strangely, the more they bantered, the less comfortable he felt. It had the strangling air of two sun-kissed cobras suddenly sealed in a jar together, only they weren’t biting each other, they were playfully pretending to bite. Too much too soon. He had to get out. The smell of venom was strong and all around them in this coffin haven—a part of him had lived and died here over and over in the years since he’d left. Jane had thrived in the limelight, visited a hundred worlds, shaken a million hands. He’d hardly set foot outside the Martian Theme Park, and the most responsibility he’d had was making sure the Gemini Sparks didn’t come off its tracks. He’d never even tried to fill the void left by giving up Fifth Condor. Not that anything could ever replace those best years of his life. But Jane had tried, maybe even succeeded—he wasn’t sure. They still had that old rapport, yes, but they were no longer equals. Not even close. He squirmed when she flashed her congressional ring.
The droll whir of a motor crossing the carpet behind them made him heave a quiet sigh. Thank Christ. An interloper to dispel the venom.
“Hey up, here’s where we might have to start that old saluting malarkey.” Jane spun and slid off her stool, then tugged him to do likewise.
He took weird delight in his slouch, his languidity. An insubordinate urge seemed the only antidote to his claustrophobia. Especially here. The disabled officer wheeling toward them looked familiar, dark-haired, pretty but harsh—half a woman yet twice as disarming. He belched into the side of his fist. Jane quivered a smirk as she thumped his arm.
“Cardie, Brink. You probably don’t remember me.” The officer tossed them a squadron leader’s pin apiece—gold, surprisingly heavy. “Let’s skip the formalities.”
“I know who you are.” Jane stepped forward, offered her hand. “Herapeth, right? Hera?”
The crippled officer—a flight commander, no less—opted not to shake Jane’s hand. “You can call me Hera, yes, but let’s not pretend we were friends. I respected you as fliers. No, more than that, I prayed to one day be as good as you. But we all know when and why that ended.”
“Hold on there just a minute—”
“No, let her get it off her chest.” Brink interrupted Jane’s protest. “Now’s the time for talking straight if ever there was one. And I remember you too, Hera. You were in my squad, right?”
“Uh-huh. Making Fifth Condor was, and still is, what I’m most proud of. But I don’t consider you a part of that. Maybe once, but you disgraced the memory of those great fliers. Perihelion was the best and the worst day in the history of ISPA—you were responsible for the latter. Make no bones about it, we need you now. We need your names, your so-called reputations, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re not gracing us with your presence here, you’re simply trying to pay off an old debt, one you can never repay.”
“In that case, you can say a prayer and kiss my ass. I’m outta here.” So much for accepting straight talk. His reaction was hollow and petulant, and he knew it. Jane’s light fingertips on the breast of his robe were sufficient to halt his exit.
“All right, you’ve said your piece, Hera. But you do need us here, so from now on, no one will so much as hint at the truth behind Perihelion in our presence again. Is that clear?” A haughty note from Congresswoman Acton, actually quite a turn-on. “We pretend to be heroes unto our deaths and forever after, safeguarding ISPA’s reputation. You make sure Pyro Canyon is off-limits to everyone and everything for all time. The contract is still binding, is it not?”
“It is, though you never disclosed the reason for quarantining Pyro Canyon.”
“And we never will. That one goes with us to our graves.” She didn’t even need to glance at Scott to know his assent. Nothing mattered more to them in the universe. Not even each other.
“Okay, well our analysts have estimated we have less than three weeks until the next major Sheiker offensive. They suffered significant damage when they attacked the Vike, but there’s a vastly superior force waiting in the wings. They’ve already set up bases well inside the 100z border. Flash warp recon has spotted likely energy signatures on over forty worlds, which means the Finaglers have sponsored this invasion on a mind-boggling scale. We believe it’s a full-on play for the whole of ISPA space, to take out all our means of defense in a series of offensive waves, each one penetrating deeper toward Earth. Altimere will undoubtedly be a target for the next wave. And at the moment, we’re circling the wagons, so to speak, nothing more. We don’t have the manpower to launch a significant attack of our own.”
Christ Almighty. Even Trillion didn’t tell us it was this serious.
“So what do you need from us, Squadron Leaders? A fleet—what’s left of it. New fliers. New birds. The keys to ISPA, I suppose?” Scorn gnawed at Hera’s pause. “Well?”
He’d just about had enough of her hostility. “Right, we’ll start by appointing Corporal Trillion and Lyssa Baltacha as our propaganda agents. You’re to give them unfettered access to your Omega communication and distribution channels, as well as an unlimited budget for any and all propaganda services they require. Personnel too. She wants a hand-picked crew of filmmakers here, ready to shoot the hottest damn recruitment spot ever aired? She gets it. Special effects, music, even if it’s copyrighted—you’ll have to settle the lawsuits later. Jane?” He gave his partner a nudge.
“Yes, and we’ll need every newscaster and podnet blogger jiving to our jingoism simultaneously. Trillion knows how. IPR will hav
e to do what he says, when he says, and like it, because we’re stirring up a cosmic cyclone in the next few weeks, and the last thing we need is an internal power struggle siphoning off our hard work. So step aside, Commander. Until Brink and I lead out the newly reformed Fifth Wing Squadron, it’s us and Trillion and then God. Now, do you understand?”
“I’ll have to report first.”
“Toddle off, then. Go on, stop wasting our time.”
Hera snorted a black chuckle. “You haven’t changed, I see.”
“No. We were bastards before Perihelion, we were cunts after, and now we’re fat and pissed off to boot.” Jane patted his waistline. “Good God, man, will you even fit in the cockpit?”
“Maybe after your ass has widened it.”
“Hey, and you said I was looking trim.”
“I said I was looking for some trim.”
She laughed. “Tired of jailbait on the ’coasters, huh?”
“Kinda like you and those politico grayhairs—man, all that fossil-digging.”
“Sick, Scott, sick.”
“Missed me, then?”
“Maybe. You?”
“Nah. I had another twisted bitch to deal with every day.” He winked. “She was called Gemini Sparks. You’d have loved her. Gave me so much grief.”
By the time they’d turned to fetch their drinks and clink the glasses together, the lounge was empty again. Neither of them had noticed Hera leave. He smiled. All it had taken to properly unite them was a common enemy. Perhaps that had been the crippled commander’s plan all along—to rag on them a little, get them to join forces in their inimitable old style.
And yes, the venom had vanished. It was the two of them side by side again, contra mundum.
Just like old times.
* * *
The mist had begun to clear between the second and third rings as the two of them saw the lighthouse in its entirety for the first time in over fifteen years. Brown water skippers, no bigger than charred human fingers, frittered away after the mist, preferring the vapor and the anonymity it afforded. They left laddery ringlets in the water. Brink stopped swimming to watch one as it zigzagged at a tremendous clip, its fins skimming the water more like the wings of a hummingbird.
Anonymity.
He’d given that up today, once and for all. It would never be his again. The filming had taken three full mornings and two afternoons, plus one shot that had taken advantage of the corona of an eclipse, a rare event on most worlds but a fairly frequent one on Altimere, owing to the number of dull sister moons sharing its orbit and the bright but relatively small star at the center of the system. An easy enough shoot, lots of staging and lens filtering. He’d had to show attitude, strike poses, little more. Christ, it had all happened so quickly: from the obscurity of his park to the glare of galactic limelight, a matter of days—the visit from Trillion and Lyssa, the Sheiker assassin, his back-channel warning to Jane, their subsequent back-and-forth chats leading to this, the second-biggest decision of their lives, yet one they’d made alongside the first. In Pyro Canyon…a lifetime ago. That purgatory between death and rebirth.
Time to put things right, whatever the cost.
Hera and her cronies knew half the tale of his and Jane’s disgrace, the Perihelion half. They knew nothing of Pyro Canyon, of the real reason they’d gone AWOL from Fifth Condor and missed the battle altogether. They could never know. No one could. A secret like that could never be trusted to an organization whose sole raison d’être was dominance, the absolute control over lives and things and empty space. If it weren’t for the rise of the IC Congress and the forced liquidation of Kuiper Wells—the nefarious interstellar corporate entity that had funded ISPA’s non-military “enterprises”—they would all still be living under the might of military-industrial control.
And at the end of the day, Kuiper Wells had forced ISPA to dissolve the border colonies, giving the powerful shack-sheiks a simple choice—either move back behind 100z to take up legitimate, taxable enterprises, or be exiled to the mapless shadows of deep space.
See how well that turned out.
As he was climbing onto the smooth edge of the third ring, his knee slipped. He slapped his palms onto the alien metal and found that he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up a second time. He puffed. Laid his cheek flat on the poreless, tasteless metal curve. Spat into the water that lolled about his chin. Jane gripped his wrists and helped pull him onto dry land, first onto his knees, then deliberately knocked him sideways onto the ground.
“I’m a wreck, Jane.” He meant it, gasping.
“You’re not so bad. We’re just getting old. Come on, one last effort and it’s done.”
“Give me a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
“I can do this.”
“I know.”
“You’re still beautiful, Jane. You know that. Different…but beautiful.”
“Don’t be sappy, Brinkman. Now come on, the lighthouse is waiting.”
“Tell me we can do this—beat back the Sheikers, I mean.”
She eyed him sharply. “The truth?”
“Yeah.”
“We can’t beat the Sheikers. Our strike force is going to get annihilated.”
He uncrumpled to his feet. “Then what the hell are we—”
“Scott, we’ve been through this.”
“I know. It’s just…if we could only visit…just once. See if it worked or not. See for ourselves whether—”
“Nope.” Jane crossed her arms and began to rub her skin-hugging drysuit. “We did what we did. The rest is up to fate—they told us so. We can never go back.”
Words that would have to haunt him for the rest of his life. “The kids in the park, we got on well.”
“Yeah?”
“They always asked about you, what you were like.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“That you were the only woman alive who could shoot down a squadron of enemy fighters and knit a cardigan in the same day.”
She grinned girlishly, then kissed him on the lips. A cold, damp kiss, not quite long enough to grow warm. “Do you know what I used to tell people about you?”
“No.”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
She led him by the hand to the edge of the fourth channel, the opposing currents of which clapped waves together at erratic points, tossing up spumes of froth.
“Ready?” Her gray drysuit creased at the ribs and stomach and hips as she bent, about to dive. Exaggerated roundnesses made her seem more real and less real at the same time—back in Fifth Condor, she’d been skinny, athletic, probably a bit too skinny. Now she was generously stacked and filled out her swimwear with pleasing results. If only he’d been around to enjoy the change as it had happened. If only…
“Why did you tell them nothing about me?”
She stared down at the lapping water. “Because you’re all mine, Brinkman. Always will be.” After sucking in a breath, she dove in.
The roving red of the lighthouse beam blazed unobstructedly out across the sky of Altimere. Brink watched her power through the sloshing brew and reckoned that, with enough time, he could set things right between them, make up for all the misery. Somehow. He dove in after her.
But they didn’t reach the lighthouse that day. Or the next. Or ever again.
After all these years, the currents were simply too strong.
Chapter Ten
Two weeks later.
It was a sight Gus had never expected to see in his lifetime. The resurrection of Fifth Condor. All the raised airstrips splayed outward over the water from the command hub like fat, wheelless spokes were teeming with activity. Fuel pipes wove between crafts as distended green veins, flexing furiousl
y at the points of contact with the ships. The tiny pilots in their blue-gray jumpsuits and lit-lantern helmets exchanged hand gestures and mementos as they ducked, mock-fisticuffed, strutted to their respective ships—the unpainted, vulture-shaped products of two weeks’ incredible manufacturing prowess.
“Trillion, you there?” Cardie’s voice crackled for a moment over his omnipod, then self-modulated until it was clear as a bell.
“Here. Up in Crow Ops, can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“Tell me about it. Lyssa there with you?”
“Sure is.” In fact, L.B. was busy chatting over her own headset on the other side of the console arc, perhaps to finalize the camera setup, perhaps speaking to Brink as Gus was speaking to Cardie.
“Secure line?”
“Always.”
“Good. There’s something I want you to have, in case Scott and I don’t make it back. It’s important. The two of us have decided.”
“Um…okay.” His gut told him it had something to do with their great mystery, with Pyro Canyon—the crux of a great many unknowns.
“I know what you’re thinking. And yes, it will answer a lot of questions, but it will raise even more…for whoever is made privy to it. So be sure to guard it carefully, always, no matter what happens.” Curiouser and curiouser.
He magnified his imager and waved down to the front of the squadron, where she stood on the nose of her ship, one leg entering the cockpit. A white cardigan peeked out from her unzipped jumpsuit. Someone walked over his grave. “Understood. But whatever it is, it has a much better chance of being kept under wraps by a congresswoman. A billion missing e-ballots will testify to that.”
She laughed piercingly. “God speed, Trillion. Let’s hope this works.”
“Yes, ma’am. And it’s already working. The live feed is spider-webbing the galaxy as we speak. Our package is going to blitz the colonies as soon as you hit orbit.”
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