* * *
Our exit from the tube system deposits us in the subsurface tunnel connecting Silver Circle to Lunar General, and I see a familiar face as soon as I step out of the rover.
“Edwin?” Breyella Wilgus runs up to me and grabs my arm. She’s wearing an overcoat and carrying a ruggedized tablet on a cross-body strap. “You’re with the spacemen?”
Before I can answer, Gorski jogs past us toward a cluster of dark blue uniforms. “We’ll meet you at the mobile command post, Commander!”
“Yeah. Thanks. See you there,” I say.
Breyella frowns at me. “‘Commander’?”
“Miss Wilgus,” Jessica says, walking past my other shoulder, not even slowing down as she passes us. Yeah, it’s cool, Surge, just let me deal with this.
“Dr. Chu.” Breyella nods.
Jessica follows Gorski and the other spacemen. The last people out of the rover are Alisa and Rich, wheeling Joey’s gurney between them.
“Is that a child?” Breyella asks, her eyes wide.
“I can explain—”
I freeze when I see Yodey and Zoo walking toward us. I probably shouldn’t assume they’re up to no good, but given my own dealings with them—
“Dayton!” Breyella says, waving at Yodey. “Excuse me for just a second, Edwin.”
I’m so surprised, I don’t have anything to say for a second.
“Edwin?” Yodey says. “What you doing here?”
“I’m with Dr. Chu,” I manage to say, pointing over at Jessica.
Breyella looks from Yodey to me and back again. “You two know each other?”
“Indeed,” Yodey says. “Edwin also boost Planned Parenthood. Had a smooth chat over in Sabine lately.” He gives me a significant glare, and I get the message: Let’s not reveal our actual business arrangements in front of a third party.
“Whatever.” Breyella shakes her head and turns to Zoo. “Zubayr. Status?”
“Five by five,” Zoo says, holding up a tablet. The display shows a list of names, mostly green text with some yellow. “All ICU patients out of the dome. We loading folks with breathing gear now.”
“Good,” Breyella says, making a notation on her tablet. “Call me when you get to the IPM cases.” It’s funny how I know that stands for “impaired physical mobility” because of the time Science Division “accidentally” broke both my legs.
“Wilco,” Zoo says.
“We out,” Yodey says. They both jog off toward Zoo’s rover.
“Okay,” I say, watching them go, “just to be clear, I’m asking this because I know Dayton personally—but are you sure you can trust those two with that job?” I’ve never been the best thief, but even I know the elderly and infirm are easy marks.
Breyella frowns. “Dayton and Zubayr have volunteered at Lunar General every summer for the last six years. I know I can trust them. You, on the other hand—”
“I can explain.”
“Well, apparently you’re in the OSS reserve,” she says. “Just like Dr. Chu. Did you serve together?”
Thank you, Breyella, for jumping to conclusions. “Yes. I suppose you could say we’re still serving together.” It’s not a lie.
“And you didn’t identify yourself previously because…?”
“Because this isn’t a military matter. Wasn’t, anyway.” I spread my hands apologetically. “Dr. Chu doesn’t like to advertise the fact that she was in the war. You understand.” The Independence War is still a touchy subject for a lot of people.
Breyella blinks. “I didn’t realize—wow.”
“See? That’s why.” People always think differently of someone who’s been in an armed conflict. Even if she never picked up a weapon. She still picked a side.
“Okay. Water under the bridge. We have bigger problems now.” Breyella taps at her tablet. “We still haven’t located Gladys Löwenthal. I don’t suppose you—”
“We found her. She’s fine.” Again, not a lie. I’m sure Khan is taking very good care of our darling Clementine.
Breyella glances over her shoulder, but the OSS spacemen have disappeared into the crowd of people filling the tunnel. “Who’s the child?”
“That,” I say, “is a very long story.”
“He’s the reason you’re here, isn’t he?” Breyella says. “You need something in the hospital to treat him? What’s his condition?”
“I’m not a doctor,” I say. “All I know is, we need the MTI rig in radiology.”
Breyella’s face falls. “You know about the mechs, right?”
I nod. “That why we brought the spacemen.” I hold up my EMP rifle. “And these goodies.”
Breyella nods. “Guess I should introduce you to the marshals.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I say. I’ve already spotted a few more familiar faces. Apparently this crisis is the social event of the season.
Breyella leads me over to the mobile command post, where Jessica and the spacemen are gathered around a display table with a group of U.S. marshals—including Deputy United States Marshal Gurley, Deputy United States Marshal Wecks, and Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal Sundar Punjabi. These folks have even longer titles than the military.
“Mr. McDrona,” Punjabi says, eyeing me as I join them. “Or should I say Commander McDrona?”
I shrug. “It’s a long story, Marshal.”
“I would love to hear it sometime,” Punjabi says. “But right now, I am happy to let you and your spacemen deal with those mechs inside the hospital. We have other fish to fry.”
“Thanks.”
He motions for the other marshals to follow him, then leads them away, but stops next to me first and says quietly, “I don’t like spies.”
“And how many spies have you known?” I reply.
He frowns. “I have no idea. That’s the point.” He leaves before I can toss off another witty rejoinder. I hate it when other people have the last word. Leaves me without a sense of closure.
I turn my attention back to the group. Breyella has interfaced her tablet with the large table, and the display surface is lit up with a map of the hospital. She points out where the MTI rig is located, and where we are.
“Elevators are shut down?” Gorski asks.
“Absolutely,” Breyella says. “Standard emergency protocol. And all patients and hospital personnel have been evacuated from the radiology wing.”
“And the nearest stairwell is—”
“Here.”
Henderson walks up next to Gorski carrying a large black bag.
“Merry Christmas,” Henderson says. “Body armor and radio buttons for everyone.” He opens the bag and starts laying out supplies.
“All right, people, suit up,” Gorski says. “Commander, I recommend a two-element infil, one at ground level, one coming up through the basement. We split up the docs, breach at ground level first, then bring the kid up the stairs to radiology. Do you approve?”
He draws lines across the tabletop display as he talks, and I try to imagine this going well. I’m glad he’s giving me a recommendation to approve and not just asking me an open-ended question. This is not my area of expertise. But I am technically in command, so I need to make a show of being commanding. I swear I can feel everybody watching me.
“Sounds good,” I say. “Gorski, you lead the ground-level team. I’ll take the basement. I want Mr. Johnson and Joey—the kid—with me.”
“I want to stay with Joey,” Alisa says. “I’m his primary care—”
“Like Gorski said,” I say, “we split up the docs. That’s you and Mr. Johnson. I want you to get to the MTI rig first and make sure it’s ready for Joey.”
“It’s okay, Doctor,” Rich says. “He’ll be fine.”
“I’m coming through the basement with you,” Jessica says.
“Of course you are.” I stare at the glowing red blips—hostile mechs—moving around the map. Are we really doing this? We’re really about to go shoot up a hospital? “Gorski, you
split up your spacemen however you want.”
“Varonfakis, Henderson, you’re with the kid. We’ll keep the basement team small. The rest of us will do our best to draw fire upstairs so you can sneak in,” Gorski says. “Looks like the robots are engaging anyone who gets close, so weapons free as soon as we breach. If it’s not human, take it out.”
“Are we worried about property damage?” Nguyen asks.
“Negative,” Gorski says, glancing over at Breyella. She nods in agreement. “Security cameras show the robots are dismantling the MTI rig for transport. Our priority is securing that room and getting the child in there for treatment ASAP.”
“Hope this kid’s worth all the trouble,” Varonfakis mutters.
“Every human life is precious,” I say.
“Tell that to my mother-in-law.”
* * *
The basement of the hospital is quite well appointed, as such things go. I was expecting some dark, narrow corridors with pipes everywhere spitting steam or dripping water, but this looks like pretty much any other part of the hospital: corridors wide enough for two gurneys to pass side by side, bright lighting everywhere. The only thing that’s missing is people. There are no patient rooms down here.
According to the map, the morgue is at one end, and most of the rest is storage areas. Our current objective is the stairwell that will get us upstairs and closest to the radiology department. But we’re not supposed to go up those stairs until we get the all-clear from Gorski’s team.
My team reaches the stairwell without incident. I’m leading the way, followed by Jessica and Rich pushing Joey’s gurney, then Henderson and Varonfakis covering our six.
I push open the stairwell door and am greeted by a spray of bullets.
“Jesus fuck!” I shout while pulling the door shut again and dropping to the ground.
“Report!” Gorski shouts over the radio.
“Tango in the stairwell!” Henderson replies.
“Just one?”
Henderson looks at me. “Sir?”
I blink my eye to rewind my mission recorder. I only see one set of muzzle flashes on the vid playback. “Confirmed. Just one.”
Gunfire sounds over the radio. “We’re engaged! Repeat, we are engaged!”
I stop trying to make sense of the shouts over the radio and blink my eye into scanning mode. The stairwell door isn’t scan-shielded, and I verify that there’s just one robot on the other side—a bigger version of the spiders we saw at SDF1, slowly creeping down the stairs, with some kind of large-caliber automatic weapon mounted to its chassis.
“One mech walking down the stairs,” I say quietly to Jessica and Henderson, who have moved forward with weapons at the ready. Rich is hanging back with Varonfakis, looking nervously up and down the corridor. “How do you want to do this?”
“Tell me when it stops moving, sir,” Henderson says.
My left eye scanner shows me the advancing robot in a glowing yellow outline, with the most radar-reflective objects and surfaces glowing the brightest. I can’t get a specific readout on its weapon—probably missing its bar code; that’s a common mercenary trick to make their weapons harder to trace. But the holes it’s putting in the walls are pretty large caliber. I report this over the open radio channel for all the spacemen to hear.
“How close is it?” Henderson asks.
“Still at the bottom of the stairs,” I say. “Stopped moving. Probably not going to get close to the door.”
“Armored?”
“Yeah. Can’t tell the composition.”
“How big?” Jessica asks.
I check the size and range. “Not too big to fit inside a wormhole.”
I think of a brown cartoon coyote and concentrate on opening a portal directly behind the robot, with no barrier so the mech will get sucked backward into the pocket.
It doesn’t work.
“What’s the problem?” Jessica asks. She’s mentioned before that I get a certain look on my face when I use the pocket.
“Can’t pull a portal,” I say. “The mech must be touching the wall.” I can only open the pocket facing me, and it has to be in midair; any solid object will stop portal formation. If that mech has a limb touching the wall behind it, I can’t open the pocket big enough to suck it in. The best I could do is knock it off-balance, and I’m sure its targeting sensors can compensate for that.
“Why is that a problem?” Henderson asks.
“Long story,” I say. “Henderson. If Dr. Chu pushes open the door, can you cover me while I zap the mech?”
“Sounds like a plan, sir.” Henderson flicks off the safety on his weapon. “Tell me when you’re set up.”
I move to the left side of the doorway, the side that’s going to swing open when Jessica pushes the door inward, and lift my EMP rifle. I brace the stock against my shoulder and aim it as well as I can at the robot’s center mass as shown in my eye.
“Good to go,” I say.
“On my mark,” Jessica says, putting one hand on the door. “Three. Two. One. Mark!”
She slams open the door. Henderson lunges into the stairwell and ends up lying prone on the floor, firing up at the mech. I pull my trigger as soon as I see the red guide laser from my rifle painted on the robot, sending an invisible wave of electromagnetic disruption through it. The blast convulses all of its limbs in metal-grinding spasms.
Henderson stands, runs up to the robot as soon as the EMP blast hits, and slaps a yellow-and-black striped disk onto the side of the robot. A circle of orange sparks sprays from the disk as it cuts through the robot’s armor, and the disk falls into its innards. A second later, an explosion topples the robot over onto its side, and then smoke puffs out of the opening cut by the perforator disk.
“Clear!” Henderson calls.
Jessica and I step into the doorway. She stops the door before it swings shut again. I turn to wave the rest of our team into the stairwell. Rich and Varonfakis push the gurney carrying Joey toward us.
The wall behind Varonfakis explodes in a shower of shattered plaster.
Henderson ducks out into the corridor and fires toward the source of the projectiles hitting the wall. Varonfakis joins him. Rich rushes past me into the stairwell, and I jump back to get out of the way. Henderson and Varonfakis follow him in, then kick the door shut just as more bullets strike it from the outside.
“Jesus Christ!” I blink my eye back into scanning mode. I see two pairs of spidery silhouette approaching from either direction. “We’ve got four more mechs, two on each side!”
“Rich, are you hurt?” Jessica asks.
Rich brushes some debris from his face and coughs. “I’m okay. Just got sprayed with debris.”
“How’s Joey?”
Rich checks the medical monitor bar fixed above Joey’s chest. “Still stable.”
“Good.” Jessica steps off the stairs and comes over to where I’m bracing the door shut. “Kangaroo, take Joey and get him upstairs.”
I stare at her. “What are you going to do?”
“Rich and I will stay here with the spacemen and defend this position.”
“We’ll what?” Rich says.
“I guarantee you’re a better shot than Alisa.” Jessica taps the radio button on her collar. “Gorski, what’s your situation?”
I realize that we haven’t heard any shooting noises over the radio for the last several seconds. Gorski’s voice buzzes through.
“We’ve secured the top side of the stairwell,” he says. “Tangos have retreated into the MTI lab. We’re advancing now.”
“You go up there and follow them in,” Jessica says. “Don’t waste time.”
“But you—”
“We’ll be fine,” she says. “Your responsibility is Joey. Got that?”
I look down at the face of the sleeping child on the gurney. My face.
“Goddammit,” I say, shoving my rifle at Rich and grabbing the handle of the gurney. “It’s going to be a bitch getting this up the stair
s by myself.”
“So ask for help,” Jessica says.
I blink at her, then squeeze my radio button. “Hey, uh, Gorski, can I get some help moving this gurney up the stairs?”
“I’m on my way,” Alisa says.
“Great.” I give Jessica a dirty look.
“Have fun with your new best friend,” she says. “Rich! Get over here!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Moon—nearside—Lunar General
2 days of not slapping Alisa Garro and counting
Alisa meets me at the bottom of the stairs, and we proceed up in total silence, for which I am supremely grateful. When we reach the top, we stop, and she checks in with the spacemen before opening the door into the hallway.
“Just clearing the last tango,” Gorski says. “Wait one.”
“Holding position.” Alisa looks down at the gurney and frowns. “What are all these white flakes here?”
“Debris from the wall,” I say. “Some mechs shot at us before we got into the stairwell.”
“Is he injured?” Alisa leans down and taps at the medical monitor.
“Relax. Rich checked him out already.”
“And now I will,” Alisa finishes manipulating the controls on the monitor bar and exhales. “Okay. He’s still stable. We’ve got time.”
“By the way,” I say, “was it your bright idea to not let him leave the Moon, ever?”
Alisa glares at me. “Joey’s existence—your existence—is one of the biggest secrets the agency has. We couldn’t risk any exposure—”
“He’s just a kid,” I say. “He doesn’t understand any of that.” I certainly wouldn’t have, when I was five years old. “Did you even tell him that he can expect to have a weird crazy power someday?”
“I’m not discussing this now.”
The radio buzzes. “Clear in the hallway,” Gorski says. “Come on out, Doc.”
Alisa unlocks the gurney wheels. “Let’s go.”
We wheel Joey into the corridor, then down past the spacemen guarding the area and toward the door of the lab. It feels like it’s been several lifetimes since the last time I was here.
The treatment room is much more cramped now, with not only the MTI rig filling most of the room, but two spacemen in full body armor, three different disabled mechs in the corners, and machine parts all over the floor.
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