I was moving too fast to check my squad map, but I knew Kat would have taken her usual place at the end of our column. I snatched words from between panting breaths. “Kat, that one’s yours. Take it out.”
“You got it, Sergeant.”
“Trident. RPs?”
“Not in sight yet, and I can’t hear anything coming.”
“Other stairwell, you think?”
“Could be.”
We didn’t have any devices in place to monitor that route.
I flinched at the harsh report of a three-round burst.
“Seeker down,” Kat reported.
“Haul ass,” I told her.
The enemy knew now where we were—but the elevators weren’t running. They’d have to come up the stairs after us, and I wasn’t going to give them a chance to catch up. “Close up any gap in the line,” I ordered. “This is a sprint.”
Of course it was possible the RPs had personnel already in place above us, positioned out of sight on one of the floors, waiting to launch an ambush.
“Here they come,” Trident said. “Enemy now passing the first wall camera. We’ve got nine… no, eleven RPs on your trail. Armed with automatic rifles, a couple of grenade launchers. Manual grenades.”
We were way ahead of them.
* * *
How long does it take to climb forty stories? We were advancing two or three stairs at a time, each stride powered by our exoskeletons. We still had to work for it, but if no one got in our way, it was only going to take a few minutes to reach the top. “You got our ride incoming?” I asked Trident.
Silence on his side, extending several seconds, long enough to make me worry about a communications issue. I reached the next landing.
“Stairwell’s blocked ahead,” Trident said. “At least a hundred people—”
“What?” I pulled up so abruptly Lopez had to dodge to keep from crashing into me.
“I think they’re mostly civilians—”
“What do you mean, you think?”
“They knocked down the seeker before I could do a full assessment. I can confirm noncombatants, though. Children. Unarmed women and men. Approach cautiously. Don’t shoot unless the AI marks a target.”
My LCS was gathering on the stairs below me. On the landing, the fire door told me we were on the seventy-fifth floor. “Why don’t I hear them, Trident?” I whispered. “That many civilians, just a few floors up, I should hear voices. Are they alive?”
“Yes. Yes, they’re alive. They’re quiet. They’re hushing each other.”
That told me they were afraid. They didn’t want to be found—but we were going to run right into them, and the RPs would follow.
Trident said, “Intelligence is analyzing the video we were able to get. Using facial recognition to identify them.”
Resentment stirred inside me, though at what, I wasn’t sure. Maybe at Trident’s feigned ignorance as he pretended there was some question about who was hiding on the stairs above. I put an end to that. “They’re the expats,” I said, starting to climb again. “The technicians, the bureaucrats, the ones who came back to help rebuild this city. The ones the RPs have been throwing out the windows.”
The expats had abandoned their country, fled the fighting, only to return in the company of foreign troops. That made them an enemy of the people they’d left behind, right?
“Confirming your guess,” Trident said. “But there could be RPs with them.”
I snorted. That wasn’t likely. I reached the seventy-seventh floor. “They’re here because they were promised protection, Trident.” I knew now why I felt bitter. “Looks like that job falls to us.”
So much for an easy run to the roof. I already had three dead soldiers walking behind me up the stairs. How many more of us would become casualties as we waited for a hundred civilians to be evacuated ahead of us?
Trident’s voice was soft, apologetic, as he said exactly the opposite of what I expected to hear: “Negative, Josh. Command says you will continue up the stairs to the roof, where you will be evacuated.”
“You mean ahead of the civilians?”
To my shock, Captain Tardiff broke in. “The civilians are the responsibility of the Coalition leadership and will be evacuated by them. My responsibility is to you and the rest of my people. My orders are to get all of you out safely, with no additional casualties. So you will proceed past the civilians—”
“But Captain Tardiff, sir, the enemy is just a few minutes behind us.”
I shouldn’t have interrupted him, but his orders weren’t making sense to me. That fed my resentment, helped it grow into anger—though I still wasn’t sure who or what I should be angry with. The civilians, for getting in my way? The Coalition, for this FUBAR’d operation? The captain, for ordering me to walk away and do nothing to prevent a slaughter? Or myself, because I’d been wishing for an excuse to do exactly that.
The captain sorted it all out nicely: “It’s not a matter for debate, Miller. You will take your LCS directly to the roof and stand ready to evacuate. Is that understood?”
Yeah, I’m slow, but I do catch on. We’d been brought to Region Five to support the peace process. No one had asked us if we wanted to come. But the expats had volunteered. Now the whole affair was revealed as an empty gesture, a stunt, a performance put on so that afterwards the politicians could shrug and say, Hey, we tried!
Sure, the expats had hoped for more—but they should have known better.
* * *
Trident monitored the progress of the RPs through the wall cameras we’d left behind. The civilians monitored us through their cell phones.
We saw the first phone tucked into a corner of the stairwell on the eighty-first floor. I knew the local cell system was down, but with peer-to-peer capabilities, the phones could be useful within the building. So I cradled my weapon, and as I passed the phone, I held up a gloved hand and flashed an OK, making sure the American flag on my uniform was visible. I didn’t want any resistance when we caught up with them.
Another phone, two floors up, passively observing.
The third phone spoke as I reached it. A woman’s voice. I slowed to listen: “We are no threat,” she said in crisp English. “Please, there are children with us—”
Some part of my mind wanted to sympathize with her, but what was the point? I couldn’t help her. So I cut her off with gruff instructions. “Ma’am, I want to see everyone’s hands when I turn the corner. You communicate that to your people. Cooperate, and no one needs to get hurt.”
They weren’t fools. They did as they were told. I saw them as I approached the eighty-seventh floor. They were packed onto the flight above, mostly men in pale button-down shirts and conservative slacks, watching me between the rails, their hands held shoulder high, palms out. The battle AI assessed the visual feeds received through my helmet cams. It highlighted no weapons.
I noted that they’d left no room to get past them.
Two women, apparently serving as their advance team, waited for me on the landing. One was slim and young, dressed in a dark business suit too hot for this climate, the other middle-aged, a round figure in a flowing brown and beige gown. Both stood with hands up. I guessed the rest of the women and the children were above, on the next flight of stairs which should be the last flight, just below the door to the roof.
The older woman spoke to me in a low, cautious voice. “You are Americans, part of the coalition that invited us here. Will you help us?”
“We’re trying to get to the roof, ma’am.”
“As are we. We cannot go down. If the revolutionaries find us, they will kill us. We tried to call for help, but the cell system is down. So we resolved to go to the roof, where the Coalition could find us, help us—but the door at the top of the stairs is locked. We can’t get through.”
I knew I should feel sympathetic. Who wouldn’t? We owed these people… didn’t we? Still, I had my orders. I kept my voice carefully neutral when I assured her, “My people
will get the door open, ma’am. But you need to stand aside. Let us pass.”
The young woman clutched at her companion’s arm, her dark eyes fearful. “You will help us, then? You’ll let the Coalition know we are here?”
“They already know you’re here, ma’am.”
A door slammed somewhere below. I didn’t want to question Trident aloud in front of the civilians, so I asked silently, Trident, how far? Letting my skullcap pick up the thought and translate it into words that he could hear.
“A few minutes,” he assured me. “It’s a hard climb and they’re getting tired. You’ve got time to get your LCS to the roof.” But then his tone shifted. He didn’t sound quite as confident when he said, “They’re smashing cameras as they come. I can’t be sure of their numbers.”
Lopez had moved up beside me. He asked the women, “How many of you are there?”
I raised my hand to cut him off, even as the older woman answered: “One hundred twenty-eight. Thirty-two children.”
“Geez, Sergeant. What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to get the fucking door open,” I snapped, feeling my poisonous resentment on the rise again. From behind my anonymous black visor, I addressed the frightened expats. “This is what I need you to do. I want everyone to move down at least two flights. Keep close to the wall while you do it. Leave the railing clear, so we can get past. We’re going to blow the door.”
That gave them hope, so they cooperated, opening a lane alongside the railing. I started up, at the same time whispering instructions over gen-com. “Let’s move. Quickly. Forget the interval. Stay close. Look for weapons as we go, and push back against any resistance.”
Kat protested. “RPs’ gonna be here soon, Sergeant. You want me to set up a rear guard, buy some time?”
“Negative.” I reached the next flight. The women and children were there. They were moving down while I strode up. They stayed quiet, not wanting to alert any roving RPs, but they watched me, frightened eyes wanting to harbor hope, but unsure if it was a good bet. A little boy reached out, his tiny fingers brushing my exoskeleton’s thigh strut as I passed. “We stay together,” I told Kat. I knew that once we blew the door, the RPs would come fast and the civilians would panic. “I’m not going to risk a rear guard getting trapped on the wrong side of this mob.”
“Yes, Sergeant.” She sounded reluctant. She sounded like my conscience.
All of the civilians were behind me when I looked up the last, empty flight of stairs. Another closed steel fire door was at the top. Mounted above the door was an illuminated green sign. I couldn’t read it, but the battle AI tagged it with a translation. Exit. Yeah? Only if you have the key.
I sent Lopez and Chan ahead to rig the door. Then I eyed my squad map, assuring myself that everyone, even Kat, was obeying orders and coming up behind me. We gathered on the landing, or on the stairs just below. Kat was one level down, last in line. “Civilian coming up fast,” she warned.
I heard the quick footsteps, the panting breath. I told Lopez, “Once you get the door open, get outside and take down the antennas. Make it safe for the helicopters.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
I leaped down a full flight of stairs to the lower landing, letting the shocks on my rig absorb the impact. My sudden appearance startled the young woman in the business suit who we’d talked to before. The expats crowded behind her, looking frightened, like they wanted to try for the roof again. What would we have to do to hold them back, when panic hit?
The woman’s gaze fixed on me, as if she could see my eyes past my visor. She said very softly, “The killers are coming, sir. They’re close. A phone picked up their voices.”
Over gen-com, Lopez announced, “Fire in the hole.”
“Hold up,” I told him.
Once the explosives were triggered, the RPs would come after us, berserker style, because that’s how they fought—and they’d cut right through the civilians.
I’d known that before, but I had my orders.
“Sergeant?” Lopez asked over gen-com, sounding puzzled.
“These people,” I whispered to Trident. “We can’t just leave them here.”
The woman in the suit looked at me, wide eyed, her worst suspicions confirmed, while Kat backed me up. “It’s true, Sergeant. We have a duty.”
But Captain Tardiff was speaking again too. “Sergeant Miller, I don’t like this anymore than you do, but we are under orders to evacuate. We did what we could, but the mission is over.”
My heart was beating fast, my anxiety rising, my conscience white hot. “Captain, it’s only ten miles to the airport. That’s nothing. You can take the civilians out first. Thirty at a time. Drop them off, turn the helicopter around. We can hold the roof—”
“Negative. There are over seven hundred coalition soldiers to be airlifted out. If you’re not on the roof to meet your flight, your LCS goes to the back of the line—and God knows if we’ll even have a functional ship by then.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Captain Tardiff, I understand the urgency—”
“Do you? Do you understand what will happen to you if any of you are captured? Do you understand the propaganda cost to future operations? Get your people to the roof now, Miller.” His tone changed. He wasn’t talking to me anymore when he said, “Make it happen, Trident.”
Fear. That’s what they hit me with. Raw fear from out of nowhere, triggered by some formula that Trident sent to my skullcap. I teetered on the edge of a panic attack. Cold sweat, racing heart, shallow breathing, and a spine-deep desire to get out, to get away. I’d never felt an artificial load like that before. A skullcap is supposed to moderate fear, maintain an alert state, cocoon traumatic memories. It was not supposed to take away my good judgment. It was not supposed to make me too afraid to do what was right.
It was abusive to mess with my head like that—and it was illegal. I was a US Army soldier and I had rights. I clung to that thought. “Do not fuck with my head,” I whispered. “Or I am going to take the goddamn skullcap off.”
It was a move that would end my career, no question, but in that moment I did not care. I wanted my head clear. The fear eating at me was real, but I knew it wasn’t mine and I wasn’t going to let it control me. What belonged to me was my resolve that I was not going to let Trident, or the Captain, or the US Army rewrite the core formula of who I was. And that resolve was enough to let me stand firm against Trident’s artificial panic.
At the same time, I recognized the truth—I should have seen it before—but Trident must have been in and out of my head ever since we’d discovered the civilians. I felt shame remembering how, just a minute ago, I’d been thinking of them as just an obstacle to be gotten around, not as people with hopes and dreams and core truths of their own.
Kat had known something was wrong with me.
“Get out of my head, Trident,” I warned. “Get out now.”
“Shit,” Trident whispered. It was the first time I’d heard him swear. But he switched off the artificial fear and brought me back to baseline. He said, “I think you’re going to get me fired, Josh.”
“You and me, both.”
But I was starting to feel like myself again—what I thought of as me—although nothing about our situation was changed. We were in trouble, with an attack by the RPs imminent. “Lopez!” I barked.
“Sergeant?”
“I’m taking Kat. We’re going back down. We’re going to set up a rear guard. On my word, you blow the door. Make the roof safe, enforce order, and get the civilians out. See that they’re evacuated first. I don’t care what kind of flack you get. Understood?”
“Roger that, Sergeant.”
“Captain Tardiff, you still there?”
“You’re going to find yourself up on charges, Miller,” he answered. “Assuming you survive.”
Was I more determined, because they’d tried to make me panic? It didn’t matter. “Command can spin this, Captain. You know they can
. Commandeer a helicopter for this building. Prioritize the civilians. You know that’s going to make for positive propaganda anyway.”
“Goddamn it,” he said softly.
I turned to Kat, and off-com I asked her, “You with me?”
“Yeah, Sergeant. Let’s do this right.”
More of my squad spoke up, volunteering for the rear guard. I took only Young and Porter, assigning the rest to help Lopez, or to assist with crowd control.
The civilians squeezed out of the way as we headed down again. They asked no questions. Once we were past them, I whispered to Lopez, “Trigger it.”
My helmet blunted the sharp crack of the explosives, but not the fearful cries of the civilians or the chorus of angry shouts and scattered gunfire from below.
Kat leaned over the railing, aiming her HITR straight down. “Movement,” she reported.
“Hit ’em,” I said. “Grenade.”
Alastair Reynolds’ award-winning space opera is of a more contemporary bent than some, featuring more realistic science and definite modern sensibilities. Part of the British New Space Opera movement that also includes Peter F. Hamilton, Iain Banks, Neal Asher, and others, his offering for us in a new story in his Revelation Space saga, set 200 years before the events of the titular novel and deals with the discovery of the first “Shroud,” a giant alien artifact which plays a role in some of the other books and stories. This story, however, has all new characters.
NIGHT PASSAGE
ALASTAIR REYNOLDS
If you were really born on Fand then you will know the old saying we had on that world.
Shame is a mask that becomes the face.
The implication being that if you wear the mask long enough, it grafts itself to your skin, becomes an indelible part of you—even a kind of comfort.
Shall I tell you what I was doing before you called? Standing at my window, looking out across Chasm City as it slid into dusk. My reflection loomed against the distant buildings beyond my own, my face chiselled out of cruel highlights and pitiless, light-sucking shadows. When my father held me under the night sky above Burnheim Bay, pointing out the named colonies, the worlds and systems bound by ships, he told me that I was a very beautiful girl, and that he could see a million stars reflected in the dark pools of my eyes. I told him that I didn’t care about any of that, but that I did want to be a starship captain.
Infinite Stars Page 49