Black Moon

by Weatherly, L. A.

  Through the window behind Collis’s father, Kay could see the mountains of Denver: white peaks pushing against a blue sky. She’d come here to inspect the troops that were marshalling for a last-ditch push against World United.

  She had lost her nuclear weapons factory; it had fallen to WU troops like a house of cards. The news had threatened to crush her. World United had gotten a message to her soon afterwards asking if she’d surrender. She’d refused point-blank.

  Her plans for Black Moon were gone – she could never best Johnny now, never. But she could hang on to Can-Amer. With everything slipping through her fingers like sand, Kay was desperate to at least do that.

  Summoning Hank Reed to her office while she was here had been impulsive – something to distract her from all the harrowing news.

  A bastard and he’s still alive, Collis had said. Kay knew all about bastards. She’d been curious about this one. In the back of her mind was the thought that Collis had gotten rid of Cain for her, and so she could return the favour with this man he hated. Collis was in the far north again, scrambling to hold on to what was left there.

  Or that’s what his letters claimed.

  Kay paced to the window. In the plains between the city and the mountains, she could see her troops’ camp, and Keaton’s headquarters. Denver had largely been evacuated. Factory workers like Reed were some of the few people left in the city.

  “Go on,” she said finally.

  Hank Reed cleared his throat, looking cautious. “Well…I’m not sure what else there is to say, Madame President. Collis was always over there. I think he’d have moved in if he could. Once, after we left Gloversdale, I overheard him telling someone about his ‘family’ – meaning the Vancours. Well, maybe he was fourteen then and almost as tall as me, but I gave him a walloping, I’ll tell you, the stuck-up little no-good.”

  Reed seemed to catch himself. He gave an ingratiating smile. “My, though, he’s done well now, hasn’t he? I sure am proud of my boy, and even prouder that you saw fit to marry him, Madame President. Hey, I guess I’m your father-in-law.”

  Hank Reed looked nothing like Collis, but disconcertingly his voice was the same: husky, with a faint western accent. If Kay closed her eyes, it could be Collis telling her these things.

  She didn’t move from the window. “All right. You can go.”

  When she didn’t hear Reed leave, she turned around. For the first time she saw his resemblance to Collis, in the quick, friendly grin he gave. “Well now, Madame President, I’m sure if my son were here he’d put in a word for his old man. Times are tough, you know, and—”

  “Get out or I’ll have you killed,” said Kay.

  The blood drained from Reed’s face. He started to speak, then stopped.

  He left.

  Slowly, Kay went to her desk and looked at the file she’d taken from Collis’s office again. She studied his handwriting on a carbon copy: the single word No in response to whether he wanted any action taken on Mr Reed, senior.

  He’d known Amity Vancour all his life. He’d thought of her family as his own.

  The No resonated through Kay’s brain like a drumbeat. When Collis had first woken up from his gunshot wound, his promptness at betraying Vancour with the correct address had reassured Kay – he was exactly who she’d thought. She could control him.

  He’d told her that he first met Vancour on the Western Seaboard Peacefighting base. That her brother meant nothing to him.

  Kay recalled glimpsing Collis and Mac whispering in a shadowy corridor of the Zodiac once, their expressions intense. Later, the memory seemed to corroborate Collis’s story that he’d been playing Mac for Gunnison.

  Had he been playing Mac?

  Just before the assassination attack that had killed Cain, Kay had been talking with Keaton about Black Moon. If Collis had overheard…might he have decided that her death just then could be disastrous?

  Kay snatched up the phone. “Get me a long-distance line. Yukon one-four-five-one.”

  An hour later, after a series of calls, Kay slowly hung up the receiver. There had been three unaccounted-for days in one of Collis’s recent schedules. He’d covered himself well, but he’d apparently been alone during that time. No one could say where he’d been.

  Kay had lost the nuclear weapons factory less than a week after this secret absence.

  She quickly took a map from her drawer. A WU base lay near the area from which Collis had vanished. If he’d driven day and night, he could have made the return journey.

  She made another call. Through the long-distance whine, she said, “I want to know the mileage on Mr Reed’s jeep when it was first checked out in April, and also when it was returned.”

  When the numbers came, she checked them against Collis’s itinerary – the only places he claimed to have been.

  The total was off by over a thousand miles. The difference matched the return journey to the WU base.

  Kay put her pencil down, staring at the number. How was it possible to feel this betrayed? She’d known all her life that no one could be trusted. Why had she made an exception for a man she knew was a liar and a cheat?

  The memory came in a rush: a conversation about Black Moon back in January. Kay had been reading intelligence reports on the size of the WU army and air force. Keaton was right: Black Moon, when it came, would not give her the power she needed. She’d stared at the chart, trying to reconcile it with the facts in her hand.

  Frowning, Collis had said, “Actually, wouldn’t it be better to wait until summer, when we really have more bombs? They only know about two. You could set off three, then tell them there was another factory they hadn’t known about, that you have dozens. You’d have them on their knees.”

  He hadn’t mentioned it again, but Kay had found herself casting the chart for another lunar eclipse in July. Leo with Scorpio rising. This chart showed power too – but ease. A sense of everything clicking into place.

  She’d made the change, rescheduling Black Moon. And then in April, she’d lost Atomic Harmony Devices to the WU’s army.

  Other memories attacked like wasps. They all shared Collis. His lips, fervent and demanding on hers – the look in his eyes when they’d said their vows. We’re one now.

  She made a final phone call.

  “This is Kay Pierce,” she said to the commanding officer of one of her remaining northern bases. “Is my husband still there?” She toyed with her wedding ring despite herself.

  “Yes, Madame President,” came the crackling response. “I believe he’s in his quarters. Would you like to speak with him?”

  Kay let her hand fall. She felt as if she might fly into pieces. Her voice remained level. “No. You’re to arrest him and have him shot. He’s with the Resistance.”

  After Kay hung up, she sat staring at Collis’s handwriting on the file, trying to tell herself that she didn’t feel a deep sense of loss amongst the anger. She’d ordered that the execution be kept quiet; her embarrassment at having trusted Collis was intense.

  How could she have been such a fool?

  She mentally shook herself and stood up. To hell with Collis Reed. She took off her wedding ring and threw it in a drawer.

  An hour later, she was inspecting the troops with Keaton: line upon line of men and women around her own age who had been trained for over a decade, because Johnny, no matter his faults, had had foresight.

  “Good,” she muttered. “Good.” She glanced at Keaton. “When will it begin?”

  Keaton was a thin, rangy man who always smoked a cigar. “Thursday,” he said. “We’ll start attacking the WU’s northern holdings in sequence.” He gave her a level look. “I warn you, Madame President, it’ll be bloody.”

  Kay nodded, not caring, feeling only frantic lest the attack failed. And meanwhile, the problem to the east remained. The WU still held New Manhattan and now other cities too – Boston, Philadelphia. New Manhattan was the hub. With it, they could attack her holdings in the area with impunity.
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  She thought of Amity Vancour and of Collis’s betrayal – of the assassination attack that had likely been meant for her too.

  “I want New Manhattan knocked out,” she said. “Throw all the air power we’ve got into it. I don’t care if you destroy the whole island and everyone on it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  June, 1943

  Ingo and I had returned to New Manhattan to the news that Tess had died in battle the day before. Sadness had lanced through me as I recalled straight-arrow Tess loaning us the plane and wishing Hal well.

  No time to grieve; the attacks were unrelenting. One of Pierce’s hidden airbases had been in Syracuse, it turned out. She’d poured everything into it and try as we might, we couldn’t knock it out.

  Rank was assigned based on each pilot’s old Peacefighting status. Tess had been the highest-ranking Tier One. I’d known I was fourth in line, but hadn’t thought much of it.

  Suddenly I was third and our new squadron leader was a man named Toshi. Barely a week after Toshi took charge, both he and the second-in-line pilot were killed when Pierce’s bombers scored a direct hit on our airfield.

  To my shock, I was the new east-coast squadron leader, with over four hundred pilots answering to me.

  The next few weeks were a haze of tiredness and adrenalin. Near-daily air attacks still battered New Manhattan. I coordinated sorties, assigned pilots to flight details. I was also the one who wrote to families when someone was killed. I struggled over these letters for hours, trying to give comfort over deaths that had too-often been brutal and bloody.

  “I was only a Tier One because Hendrix wanted me to take bribes,” I said to Ingo once in the privacy of our room. I’d taken over Tess’s old suite. “This is a joke.”

  It had been a gruelling day, with two deaths and non-stop sirens splitting the air. Sometime after midnight I’d fallen asleep over some urgent memos, my head slumped on my forearms. Drowsily, I’d felt Ingo’s arms around me, picking me up and carrying me to our bedroom.

  “You’re capable,” he said. “And they’re following you. Nothing else really matters.”

  I pressed against his chest silently, thinking of the future we’d talked about with Ma.

  Neither of us had mentioned it since. The idea felt very distant now.

  I could never show my fear to anyone else. I steeled my spine and didn’t. Despite the hit we’d taken to the airfield, we couldn’t abandon New Manhattan; too much depended on its ports. I put people to work repairing the damage and commandeered one of the new shopping centres that had opened before the war started. It had acres of long, flat parking lots. Now it was an airfield.

  The parade of deaths, of wounded, seemed never-ending. Things began to feel more like the old Peacefighting base, with those still left keeping to themselves. Harlan’s face was closed and grim every time I saw him.

  So many pilots I knew died. Percy took a hit through the arm and was in the hospital for four days. Ingo was shot down and had to bail and landed badly, cracking two ribs. Back in our Peacefighting days, he’d have been grounded for six weeks. He was off for two days and then insisted on flying again with his ribs taped up – and I had to let him, even though I knew what agony he’d be in with the Gs pulling at him. I couldn’t afford to say no to experienced combat pilots, even ones I was in love with.

  “We need to advance west in an arc from here to here,” Jean Buzet said, drawing a curve on the map between Boston and Washington. “Can we do it?”

  “Yes, if you add more ground troops,” I said tiredly. “I’m doing what I can from the air already.”

  “Amity—”

  “Look, apart from New Manhattan, we only have three airfields and they’re all getting attacked daily,” I broke in. “What do you want me to do, Jean? More sorties? My pilots are stretched to the limit already, and we keep hearing that the worst yet is on its way.”

  We were at Baltimore Airfield, wrested from Kay Pierce by our troops two weeks before. The man Ingo had originally brought from the EA was now the World United rep for my region.

  The airport office had once held tourist pamphlets and employee schedules; now it was a war office. The small space was summer-warm, even with the windows open. A fly buzzed listlessly.

  “Pierce’s troops can’t hold out much longer,” said Jean, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

  “I’ve been hearing that for months.”

  Jean’s eyes as he put his glasses back on were sympathetic, but I could see the pressure being put on him from the top too. World United was still based in Kay Pierce’s old palace. Its high-ups were from over two dozen different nations – they’d all sworn to defeat Pierce for the sake of the whole coalition, keeping their own countries’ interests separate. They were committed, determined.

  The plight of one east-coast squadron leader wasn’t going to stand in their way.

  “It’s not a request, I’m afraid,” said Jean. “We are advancing, and our ground troops need air support.”

  Back in New Manhattan, I sat in the airport cafe making out the flight rota. It was a waste of time; we didn’t use one – when those sirens went off, you scrambled. But Corporate liked paperwork and so I scrawled names down quickly, irritated.

  “Some poor lackey will have to type that, you know,” observed Percy, sitting opposite me in the cracked leatherette booth. He was picking at a piece of apple pie.

  “I know. I don’t care.”

  “I forgot to ask, d’you suppose I can have a few weeks off?”

  My pencil stopped as I stared at him.

  “Joke,” he said.

  “Don’t do that to me.”

  Percy’s left arm was still bandaged, but he was flying again. It wasn’t his firing arm, he said, so he was fine. I knew he was lying – I’d seen him wince, climbing out of his cockpit.

  He gave a sad smile. “Sorry. Have some pie.” He slid the plate towards me.

  I started to shake my head, then changed my mind. I snagged a fork from another table and took a bite. I hadn’t eaten all day. It was delicious.

  An assistant appeared. “Miss Vancour, someone’s in the office to see you. Says he’s on WU business.”

  I held back a groan and put the fork down. I’d been looking forward to finishing the rota and relaxing for a change. I got up and Percy pulled the pie back towards him.

  In that brief moment he looked so bereft that I impulsively put my hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek, wishing that Hal could learn to deal with what he was going through – that over six weeks on, Percy might hear something from my brother instead of radio silence.

  Percy looked up, startled. Then the corner of his mouth lifted a fraction.

  “None of that now,” he said. “People will start to talk.”

  In the airfield’s administrative offices in the Grand, a secretary handed me a card. “He’s just in there, Miss Vancour.”

  The name on the card was Vince Griffin.

  Mac. I struggled to keep my expression neutral. I’d received a letter from him back in December with no return address, saying only that he’d recovered from his bullet wound and that he and Sephy were all right. The relief had been immense.

  Now the use of his code name meant that he was here covertly.

  “Everything all right, Miss Vancour?” asked the secretary.

  “Yes, thanks.” My heart beat faster as I glanced up, tapping the card against my fingers. “Who did he say he was?”

  “He’s with the WU.”

  I nodded and went into the lounge. The functional space with its plain wooden chairs was as busy as usual. A ceiling fan hummed above as several visitors sat reading magazines, waiting to be collected for meetings.

  A short man with rumpled brown hair stood at the window, gazing out at New Manhattan with his hands in his trouser pockets.

  I cleared my throat. “Mr Griffin?”

  Mac turned. It was really him. I somehow kept a grin from splitting my face
as he crossed to me with his hand out.

  “Miss Vancour? Nice to meet you. Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Of course, no problem.”

  We shook. You would never have guessed from his expression that we knew each other.

  “My office is just this way,” I said.

  Squadron Leader Amity Vancour proclaimed the lettering on the frosted glass in paint that still looked new. When we got inside I made sure the door was firmly shut and then threw myself into his arms. “Mac!”

  “Hey, kiddo,” he murmured, holding me tightly.

  “What are you doing here?” I said as we drew apart. “How are you? Where’s Sephy?”

  “Long story, fine, and at home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Nova Scotia.”

  “Really?” I hesitated. “Ingo and I were just there last month.”

  Mac’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah? Why?”

  I found myself unequal to the task of talking about Hal just then. I fiddled with the stapler on my desk and shrugged. “Just managed to snag a few days off, so we went to see Ma. I wish we’d known you and Sephy were there.”

  I started to say something else, then saw the gold ring Mac was wearing. I took his hand, studying it with a smile. “Oh, Mac…”

  He squeezed my fingers. “Yeah. The lady finally went through with it. And she’s seven months pregnant,” he added. “Says she feels like she’s going to have an elephant instead of our kid.”

  I grinned, picturing it – imagining Mac a father. “I’m so happy for you both.” I shook my head. “I wish you hadn’t come though. We’re getting it really bad again here – the rumour’s that a major attack will happen soon. Be ready to dive into a bomb shelter.”

  Then I glanced at him, apprehension stirring. “Why are you here? I assume it’s not just a social call.”

  “I wish,” he said. “No, I’ve been doing a lot of work with the WU bigwigs – liaising with my old surveillance network for them. There’s trouble, kiddo. Big trouble. I’ve got Collis down in the tunnels.”