“The Axis is down,” he announced. “I repeat, the Axis is down.”
The blast door sealed with a low hiss, gradually pressurizing the emergency operations center. A scaled-down version of JTOC, it was staffed by a skeleton crew of less than twenty people—the minimum required to coordinate the most immediate tactical needs of T-Branch. A bank of smaller screens displayed what miniscule information was available, mostly columns of text input by the communications staff as word trickled in from the outside. The rest of the people moved restlessly from station to station, prepping their consoles and waiting for the boss to show up, feeling trapped by the hundred meters of solid rock that separated them from the surface. Because of that, the EOC was more notoriously known by its nickname—the “doomsday coffin.” For the few personnel authorized to work down here during a crisis, chances were slim that, once called, they would ever see daylight again.
General Tambor saluted the two guards inside the door as he entered, with a few of his staff officers and a large armed contingent in tow. They surrounded Avalon, still in chains, and quickly whisked her away as a stunned crew looked on. Eric Tiernan followed, with Trevor Bostic close behind, while Lea and Nathan—the last two unofficial guests—were escorted out by the security detail. Lea saw the anticipation in those faces as she strolled into the EOC, every one of them wondering what to make of this ragtag bunch—and hoping beyond hope that these new arrivals had all the answers.
The general motioned the team away from the command bunker, down a concrete corridor toward a vaulted briefing room. As soon as everyone was inside, Tiernan pulled the door shut and jumbled the electronic lock. A low thrum permeated the air as electronic countermeasures engaged, inoculating the room against any kind of surveillance.
Tambor walked to the head of the conference table, placing his fingertips against its polished surface. Hunched over, he looked at his people and addressed them as if their lives depended on it.
“Where are we?”
Those seated around the table traded a round of expectant glances, until the command watch officer spoke up.
“We’ve got a few reports coming in from Strategic Missile Force installations in North America and Europe,” he said. “Those count-downs have been halted for now—though the launch keys are still active, in a holding mode. We don’t know what’s going on in the Asian Sphere, but we can probably assume similar conditions.”
“In other words,” Tambor translated, “we’ve still got a gun to our heads.”
“It looks that way, sir. The launch sequence could restart at any time. Network engineers are trying to gain access to fire control, but so far they haven’t had any luck. We also have teams on the way to disarm the warheads, but whether they can get there in time is anybody’s guess.”
“How’s our defensive posture?”
One of JTOC’s force liaisons, a young lieutenant with a cool disposition way beyond her years, answered the question. “Ground batteries are still nonfunctional,” she said. “And without ASAT weapons, our only option is to get in close enough to knock them down with interceptors—and that’s where we run into trouble, sir. The navigation systems on those birds are largely dependent on live Axis coordination feeds. Service crews will need to reprogram every single fighter with a localized flight profile before we can get them in the air, much less up into space.”
“Time frame?”
“Six to eight hours, minimum.”
Tambor sank into his chair.
“So it’s a crapshoot,” he grumbled. “Wait long enough to get our forces assembled for a counterstrike, and in the meantime pray to God that those missiles don’t go off.”
“I’m afraid so, General.”
“What about the Assembly?” Bostic interjected. “Has anybody even attempted to contact them for instructions?”
The watch officer was taken aback with Bostic’s acid tone. “We haven’t been able to get through to Vienna,” he said. “We’re doing our best, but it’s a real mess out there, sir.”
“I don’t care how bad it is,” Bostic snapped. “We need to establish a clear chain of command and figure out who’s really in charge before we start a global panic.”
“This is my operation,” Tambor said, cutting him off. “And until somebody comes to relieve me of my duties, we will proceed under my authority.” He drilled into Bostic with a hard stare, matching the corporate lawyer’s ire with his own. “If that presents a problem for you, counselor, you know where to find the door.”
Bostic chafed, but he clearly had no stomach to fight.
“Listen up, people,” Tambor thundered. “This is a war, not some bureaucratic pissing contest. We have no idea who’s alive and who’s dead, nor do we have time to sort it out. Now, you’ve all made a big point of telling me what I can’t do—but I’m here to tell you that such thinking is unacceptable.”
Tambor capped his statement by smacking his palm squarely on the table, startling everyone into an uneasy quiet. “This is an unconventional battle,” he continued more calmly, “which means we need to think in unconventional terms—because I’ll be goddamned if I let the enemy dictate to me how I’m going to fight.”
Tambor gave them a moment to consider it. Avalon was the first to break the silence, speaking up from the back of the room.
“You don’t know your enemy,” she said, stepping forward with guns trained on her. “Whatever the people on that ship have become, they still belong to the Forces. They’re survivors—and they will carry out their mission.”
Tambor swiveled in his chair to face her.
“You were one of them,” he said, gauging her. “What makes you think I’ll believe anything you have to say?”
“You will or you won’t,” Avalon stated simply. “The choice is yours—but know that I owe no loyalty to the man who abandoned his own troops. Colonel Thanis should have stood with us on Mars or died there. Instead, he took the coward’s way out.”
Tambor rubbed his chin, rocking his chair back and forth.
“You got something,” he told her, “then spill it.”
Avalon exchanged a furtive glance with Lea, who nodded at her to continue.
“You cannot win defensively,” she said. “You must take the offensive—and you cannot wait.”
Lea, sensing her best opening, leaned over the table and added her voice to Avalon’s.
“She’s right,” she said. “The only reason those people haven’t obliterated us is because they’re too busy with Lyssa to finish the job. Sooner or later, one of them is going to emerge dominant—and then it’s all over.”
Tambor seemed receptive, bordering on dubious.
“Go on,” he told her.
“The upshot is that we bought ourselves some time,” Lea explained, “but there’s no telling how long that will last. We need to make our move—and we need to do it now.”
“I’m listening.”
Lea turned to the force liaison. “What ships do we have that are ready for launch?”
“Nothing that would be of any use,” the liaison replied. “You need weapons, ordnance—some kind of attack capability.”
“I’m not talking about gunships. Just something to get us into orbit.”
The woman thought about it. “Norfolk has an LSRV,” she said. “An older-generation light space-recovery vehicle. They haven’t even replaced the avionics in it yet. It’s a dinosaur—but it can lift off almost immediately.”
Lea turned back toward the general.
“We take a small team,” she said. “Load up with explosive charges, intercept that ship and plant them on the hull. Once the devices are in place, we get away as fast as we can—and then remote-detonate.”
The room fell upon another tense silence. Bostic, refusing to be sidelined, jumped right back into the fray.
“That’s insane,” the corporate counsel scoffed. “Even if you could get close enough, how the hell are you supposed to attach bombs to the outside of that ship?”
“We’d ha
ve to perform an EVA,” Lea said, her gaze never leaving Tambor. “I’m not saying it won’t be difficult, General—and it sure as hell is risky. But right now, I don’t see any other options.”
Tambor remained inscrutable, though his lack of objections told Lea she was getting through. Bostic, meanwhile, inserted himself between Lea and the general—flexing his corporate muscle, taking one last stab at intimidation.
“You can’t seriously be considering this,” he said. “We need to throw everything we have against that ship—not some half-assed commando squad on a suicide mission.”
“We don’t have anything else,” Tambor growled. “Not for six to eight hours.”
Bostic stood, glaring down at him. “Your career is on the line, General,” he warned. “You’d better make the right call.”
Tambor met him head-on, motioning two of the guards over. They didn’t touch Bostic, but made it clear that he was no longer welcome.
“That’s what I’m doing,” he said.
“It’s your funeral, Tambor.”
“If I’m wrong, it’s everybody’s funeral.” He looked over Bostic’s shoulder at the guards. “Get him out of here.”
Bostic gave no resistance. He only buttoned his suit coat and walked to the door, acting as if he were leaving of his own free will—but Lea knew better. All the bitterness, all the politics, everything that could ever poison a man’s soul was on full display behind his heated stare, which bored into her as he left.
This isn’t over, he promised.
And Lea believed him.
So did Tambor, who studied the interaction between the two. He didn’t ask Lea about it, the same way he never asked her about being a spook. All he cared about was the mission.
“What’s your backup plan?” he asked.
Lea frowned. “I don’t think there is one.”
“Don’t give me that, Major,” Tambor said. “You’ve been in combat enough times to know you never engage an enemy without a contingency. As many things that can go wrong with this stunt, you better come up with something—and fast.”
A hundred ideas crossed Lea’s mind in the space of a few seconds, none of them any good. Then she caught sight of Avalon, her eyes shining through the prism of her neurostatic implants.
And she thought: That just might work.
“Get Novak down here,” Lea said, “and have her pack a kit.”
Didi Novak extracted a steel vial from a biohazard case, handling the thing with the utmost care—as if dropping it would instantly kill everyone in the room. In a way, that was true—though not in the conventional sense that people understood life and death.
“What is that?” General Tambor asked.
“The new strain of flash the Inru have been developing,” Novak replied. She laid the vial across the table, which made everyone release a collective breath of relief. “The results, as we’ve seen, have been rather mixed.”
“The technology allows human beings to be networked together into a biological computer,” Lea explained, remembering how much she still hated Avalon. This stuff had gotten most of Lea’s team killed—and in spite of everything, she had yet to find it in herself to forgive the Inru agent for that. “It’s based on the Mons virus—which I believe is responsible for Colonel Thanis and his people having the same ability. The Inru experiments failed when their test subjects came in contact with a powerful neural field of unknown origin.”
“Not anymore,” Avalon said. “My people tracked the field in the general direction of Mars.”
Novak nodded.
“The frequencies and wavelengths were quite similar,” she explained, “close enough to create a devastating interference pattern. The harmonics were so strong, the subjects literally shook themselves apart.”
“And you intend to use this as a weapon against Thanis,” Tambor finished.
“Only as a last resort,” Lea told him. “Assuming it even works, the colonel or one of his people would have to be injected with it. From there it would spread rapidly through their network, killing them within minutes—maybe even seconds.”
“Theoretically.”
Lea sighed. “It’s the best I’ve got.”
“Then let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Tambor said, standing up from his chair. He dismissed his staff, leaving only Tiernan, Novak, Nathan, and a few guards for Avalon. Lea also remained behind, while the general circled around and sat down on the edge of the table next to her. He looked at her in earnest, as if she was about to charge up a hill that nobody could hope to take. “You do realize that Bostic was right,” he said, losing the steely edge of a commanding officer. “This is probably a one-way ticket.”
“I know that, sir.”
“I won’t order you to do this.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Very well,” Tambor agreed. “You have a team picked out?”
Nathan was the first to come forward, without hesitation or remorse.
“You need somebody who knows that ship,” he said. “I can map out the optimal points to plant explosives. And if we do need to board her—I know exactly where to find the bastards, sir.”
“You sure about this, son?”
Nathan took his place at Lea’s side. “I owe it to my crew, General.”
“Of course,” Tambor drew out, a smile of admiration touching his lips. He then turned his attention to Tiernan, who met the general with a stone face. “Cat got your tongue, Lieutenant?”
He shook his head. “No, sir,” he stated flatly. “I would also like to go.”
Lea shifted in her seat, unable to discern Tiernan’s intentions. He conspicuously avoided her gaze, keeping his eyes leveled on the general.
“I thought you might,” Tambor said, patting Tiernan on the shoulder. “I’ll have teams assemble the ordnance. They’ll meet you on the roof in ten minutes. A hovercraft will take you to Norfolk.”
“Aye, sir,” both Nathan and Tiernan said, snapping a salute. Tambor returned the gesture and dismissed the two men to their duties. As soon as they were gone, Tambor turned around and regarded the two women who were left. “Technically, she’s still your prisoner, Major Prism,” he said, motioning toward Avalon. “What’s her disposition?”
Lea rose to her feet slowly, echoes of pain still in her limbs. Avalon, with all her scars and injuries, didn’t seem to feel anything at all. What she really wanted, Lea could never know—but they both understood that all roads had been leading to this. To do otherwise would be to cheat destiny.
And I’ve cheated far too much lately.
“I need a combat pilot,” Lea told Avalon. “You up to it?”
Avalon stared right through her. “One condition.”
Lea clasped hands behind her back. “Name it.”
“Nothing gets between me and Thanis,” Avalon said. “If it comes to saving you or killing him, the choice is already made.”
Lea remembered when Tiernan had asked her a similar question—and how she had also chosen to trade lives for a shot at Avalon. If the woman really hated her former commander that much, then Lea couldn’t afford to leave her behind.
“Take off the cuffs,” Lea said.
The guards turned to each other nervously, looking to the general for guidance. Tambor nodded, and within moments Avalon was free—her chains dropping to the floor around her. The guards backed away but kept weapons in close reach, ready to drop her at the first sign of trouble. Lea, however, knew there was no danger of that.
At least not yet.
“See you on the roof,” she said.
Avalon complied, leaving with the guards and not saying a word.
“I don’t trust that woman,” Novak said. “A killer is still a killer, even if you find yourselves on the same side.”
“I don’t trust her either,” Lea agreed, “but if Avalon wanted to kill me, she would have done it by now. Besides, if this all goes to hell, we may need her as a bargaining chip.”
“Already planning for fai
lure,” the GME said. “That doesn’t sound very promising.” She scooped the vial off the table, bringing it over to Lea. “The tip is spring-loaded with a hypospray. All you need to do is jab it into an exposed area—preferably the neck. The virus will inject itself on contact.”
Lea slipped the tiny cylinder into her pocket. “I’ll try not to use it.”
Novak drew Lea into a sad embrace. “Do be careful.”
“I will,” Lea replied, as the two let go of each other. “Keep an eye on things until I get home, okay?”
The GME nodded. With nothing else she could say, Novak walked away and never looked back. Tambor watched the door swing shut behind her, a stark silence falling upon the briefing room.
“You picked some good people,” he observed.
“The best,” Lea said.
The roof access door opened into a blinding sunset and a churning wind, the high-pitched whine of turbines descending from the skies above. A military hovercraft swooped down on the landing pad, jostling itself through all the shear before coming to rest at the end of the long docking tunnel, its engines slowing to idle as the belly hatch popped open. A uniformed crewman appeared there, waving his passengers over. Tiernan went first, with Nathan close behind, both running for the ship and quickly climbing inside. Avalon, meanwhile, went with Lea—the two of them walking with Tambor in tow, the general shouting to be heard above the ambient roar.
“Norfolk has the LSRV standing by,” he said. “They’ve loaded six heavy charges of covalent explosive, rigged to a remote detonator. At a bare minimum, our engineers say you’ll need three of them planted in just the right spots to bring that ship down. The others are for insurance. You reading me, Major?”
“Loud and clear, sir,” Lea said as they arrived on the landing pad. Avalon disappeared into the hatch while Lea stayed behind to give the general a salute. “Wish me luck.”
“You’ll need it,” Tambor said, saluting back. “We’ll get up there as soon as we can.”
“I know you will.”
He clapped Lea on the shoulder.
“Give ’em hell, Major.”
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