by Peter Telep
When they had first entered the duct, Shane had given the cell block a cursory glance to confirm that there were, indeed, prisoners present. And she had received that confirmation. But now, upon closer inspection, she noticed that standing in many of the cells were flat, metallic silhouettes of human forms with wires running along their perimeters. She frowned at 404. "What the hell are those? Torture devices?"
"They're in place to deceive thermal scans," he said. "The enemy wants us to believe there are at least five hundred prisoners held here, when, in fact, there are exactly ninety-six."
"But what about the PLBs?" Shane pointed out.
"The Chigs have obviously found a way to mimic them. The truth is, Lieutenant General Osborne suspected something like this."
"All right, mister," Shane began slowly, her gaze darting from the hobbling prisoners to the elevator then back to him. "I wanna know everything. Right now."
"You don't really have that time," he said, gesturing with his head toward the elevator. "You have to get them out."
"We have to get them out," she corrected. "And we also have to set the rest of the charges."
"Get them out. But forget about the charges."
Shane drew her pistol.
And then she shot him.
He tottered back a few steps, groaning and clutching his abdomen.
"Next one'll finish it," she assured him, sighting his head down the barrel of her pistol. "Start from the beginning."
"They didn't tell me much. You already know the Marine Corps had prior knowledge of the prisoners."
"Did Ross and McQueen know about the POWs before sending us?"
"I don't know."
"Why were you assigned to this squadron? We didn't need a demolitions expert. We could have been trained to blow this facility ourselves."
"True, but you would not have done so with the prisoners inside."
Shane nodded, beginning to understand. "But you would have. You don't have a conscience."
"Yes, but that decision has never been mine to make."
"What do you mean?"
"Consider me the United States Marine Corps' insurance policy," he said. "My highest order is quite simple. Gain entry inside the aqueduct."
"That's it? Just get inside?"
"From the moment I set foot in here, the TND in my abdomen was automatically armed, and the destruct sequence was booted up."
"TND? Spell it out."
"Thermonuclear device. Twenty megatons. The clock is ticking. If you don't believe me—"
Shane cut him off with a wave of her hand. She felt her eyes burn as she started to laugh over the absurdity of something she sensed in her heart was true. The news was par for the screwed up course she had folded thus far. "You know, Teddy?" she began, snorting a bit. "I trust you. I really do. But why wait until now to tell us?"
"My mission was compartmentalized. I wasn't supposed to inform you at all. But the virus allowed me to override that instruction. "
Snorting more forcibly, she glanced at her watch phone. "How much time?"
"Thankfully, it takes a while for the device to prime itself." He paused a moment. "Forty-two mikes and thirteen, twelve, eleven seconds."
"Hack," she said, setting her watch.
"Better hurry. The fireball will be approximately six miles in diameter."
"One more question. If all you had to do was get in here, why did you help us to rescue the prisoners? Just to maintain your cover?"
"I'm still not sure. But from the beginning, it felt like the right thing to do. I know that word felt is inaccurate to you, but for me it's correct."
"Maybe the Corps was wrong about you," she said. "Maybe, somehow, you do have a conscience."
"You'll tell them for me?"
She nodded, then gave him a crisp salute which he returned. Feeling something unexplainable, something that bordered between guilt and sorrow, she trembled as she headed for the elevator.
Once Shane had gathered all of the prisoners below the ladder that led up to the airfield, she contacted Nathan. "West, I got ninety-six prisoners down here. That's all of them. They're weak, but I think they'll make it."
"I thought there were—"
"Forget that. We'll only need one tanker, and we'll have plenty of oxygen to make it back. Can you and Iwata set the other tanker for Egghead?"
"I know what you're thinking. We're on it."
"Did Wang and 'Phousse get Hawkes down there?"
"Yeah. We got 'em. Vanessa slowed his bleeding. They're outside now. We're still taking fire from a few pilots who haven't lifted off yet."
"How many are airborne?"
"Oh, God," he said through a sigh. "Fifteen?"
If nothing else, Shane knew the ride home would prove interesting. She checked her watch phone again. "We got about twenty mikes left for this extraction."
"That's a pretty short fuse you're running," he said.
"Not my fuse. And don't ask. I'll tell you later. I'm gonna send them up now."
"Shane?" Damphousse called. "Paul and I will move to cover."
"Roger."
Shane looked at the woman nearest her, an Army PFC whose smile shone brilliantly through her gaunt face. "Move out!"
"Yes, sir!" the woman barked back, then ascended the ladder.
And twelve mikes passed before the last prisoner exited the hatch. Shane placed her boots on every other rung of the ladder and made it up top to find a well-beaten path that led to one of the big tankers.
Caught in the roaring wash of the tanker's already ignited maneuvering thrusters, Wang was squinting against the wind and waving home the last prisoner, a tall, wiry Air Force pilot who charged up the gangway. Wang spotted Shane and flashed a thumbs-up. "We are history, Captain."
She gave a quick glance left and saw that all but four of the thirty-six Chig fighters that had parked on the airfield were also history. Then she glimpsed an armed Chig darting between fighters, and that was enough to send her bolting toward the slowly rising tanker.
But the alien's fire rang out, and a stinging pain shot up her legs. She screamed, fell onto her stomach, and rolled onto her side, her hands going for the lightning in her calves.
"Shane's down!" Wang yelled. "Hold position, West!"
She heard him coming, the sound of his footsteps chased by the whoosh of laser fire. And then she felt him seize one of her arms and drag her to a sitting position. He stuffed his head under her arm, lifted her to her feet, and the lightning returned in her legs. Her scream rose over the din of the tanker and the incoming fire. Then she spoke, barely recognizing her own voice through the pain. "Say something reassuring, Paul."
"What, like don't worry, I got you? It'll be all right?" he asked, grunting as he hauled her back to the tanker.
Through a tight grimace she answered, "Yeah."
He hopped a bit as a pair of Chig slugs bit into the trampled snow ahead of them. "I don't wanna lie."
The tanker's gangway was still lowered, and it hovered about a meter above the snow. Wang got her to the ramp and laid her on its edge. Then, his teeth bared and his nostrils flaring, he slid his rifle from his shoulder and took aim. With a bloodcurdling howl, he opened up on the Chigs lurking near the fighters, dropping one and then another. When his clip was empty, he shouldered the rifle, hopped onto the gangway, and then dragged her up. "Go, Nathan! Go!"
Wang set her down on the mushy floor of the tunnel just inside the tanker. The gangway thudded shut, and veins on the walls crept across the ramp to seal it to the hull. Still wincing and wiping away tears, Shane felt the vibration of the tanker's main thrusters igniting, and then she and Wang were thrown against one slimy wall as Nathan engaged full power.
Recovering his balance, Wang slid off his rucksack, dropped to his knees, and removed his medi-kit from the pack. He slashed open the legs of her environment suit with his K-bar, then he peeled back the fabric to reveal two wounds on Shane's right calf and a single one near her left ankle. There wasn't much blood,
only the excruciating pain. "Two of them passed on through," he said. "There's still one lodged near your ankle."
She swallowed hard and said, "Just wrap me up and get me to West." According to her watch phone, there was less than two mikes left before Mister 404's big bang.
Wang did his usual efficient job of applying a battle dressing, then he helped her to a bench-like protrusion in the crew compartment. Hawkes was slouched next to her, his eyes closed, one hand holding his shoulder. Kyoko wore a pair of VR goggles and stood peering into a glowing section of veined wall that Shane remembered was the navigator's station. Nathan and Damphousse had assumed places in gelatinous-looking pilot's and co-pilot's chairs that rose seamlessly from the floor. Ahead of them was an oval-shaped viewscreen which had been set to aft, and Shane watched the aqueduct shrink and then finally become lost in the snow.
Nathan stuck his arm in a cavity near the edge of his seat, and the view switched to forward. Then he turned to her, his eyes full of concern. "You all right?"
"I will be once we're out of this atmosphere. How long?"
"Thrusters are maxed. Couple, three mikes."
"That's not good enough."
"Why?"
Shane drew in a long, slow breath as she gathered thoughts from the maelstrom in her head. "Because in about fifty seconds a twenty megaton nuke is gonna deep fry this whole side of the planet, and if the blast wave doesn't melt us outta the sky, the radiation exposure'll finish us later."
"What are you talking about?" Wang asked.
"Our silicate buddy is the Marine Corps' insurance policy," Shane said gravely. "He's a goddamned nuke." No one spoke, and their faces did not reflect their surprise. Shane guessed they were just too exhausted to react.
Then Nathan exhaled noisily. "Thrusters are maxed. That's all we can do."
Shane closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Like I said, that's not good enough."
He snorted. "Then, after all of this, we're still dead."
twenty-eight
Clinging to a shred of hope born of desperation, Nathan jammed a hand into the thruster control orifice, made a fist, then turned it clockwise, trying to squeeze a bit more acceleration out of the alien craft. But she was a defiant collection of veins and goo, and she maintained her present rate. He swore, bit his lower lip, and tried again.
"Fifteen seconds," Shane said.
Kyoko turned, slid up her VR goggles, and regarded Shane. "With all due respect, Captain, I don't want the last thing I hear before I die to be a countdown."
Wang, who'd taken up a position lying on his stomach at the radar intercept station, announced, "Bogeydope! Multiple bogeys coming up the pipe. Range twenty Ks off the Egghead tanker's six, bearing 0781."
Nathan turned to Damphousse as he slid two fingers into a small control hole and made a half turn. "Switching RP to you."
"Got it," Damphousse said, sliding on her own pair of VR goggles, which would allow her to visually inspect the Egghead tanker as she remote-piloted it. "Bring around the cannons, Paul."
Nathan switched the viewscreen back to aft and watched as the remote tanker's belly guns pivoted toward the rear of the ship. Behind the tanker, the curvature of Bulldog's Belly lowered into view, jagged strips of dark brown careening with the smooth-patterned shades of white and light blue.
"Range ten Ks," Wang said. "They've spiked the tanker. It is a target. But I've got a firing solution. And firing!"
Green bolts of energy lanced out from the tanker's cannons toward a cluster of alien fighters. Two of the ships exploded into gleaming splinters that struck another two and sent them hurtling out of control.
But another six fighters in wedge formation kept intently on the tanker's six.
"Five seconds," Shane said, glaring in Kyoko's direction.
Nathan tried one last time to get more speed out of the ship. Closing his eyes, he muttered epithets directed at the designers of the alien tanker as he turned his fist again and again.
"Egghead tanker's under heavy fire," Damphousse reported. "She's too slow to evade. Rolling twenty-two degrees port."
Snapping his eyes open, Nathan gave up on increasing speed and watched helplessly as the Chig fighters concentrated their attack on the Egghead tanker's thrusters. Those engines exploded with a force that undulated through the entire ship, tearing it into jagged, bioelectric ribbons that began tumbling through space.
"Two mikes to the sentry web," Kyoko reported. "Recognition code ready, uh, ready to, uh—"
She didn't finish her sentence. And if Nathan had been speaking, he, too, would have sputtered into silence.
From between breaks in the cloud layer, Nathan thought he saw the ground heave in the general area of the aqueduct. Suddenly, a burst of light, white-hot, powerful, blinding, rose from the surface and stole all view. Nathan blinked and squinted through the residual whiteness to finally see an expanding fireball blanket the landscape and illuminate the clouds from below.
"Long-range radar's got the shock wave," Kyoko said through an audible shiver. "Contact in seven, six—"
"We don't need a countdown," Shane said darkly.
"It's gonna hit the fighters!" Damphousse said.
A roiling swell of force that blurred and twisted everything around it struck the neat wedge of alien ships and flicked them out of the way like so many insignificant specks on the collar of the universe.
"Ohmygod," someone muttered even as the wave struck the tanker.
Nathan felt himself nearly fall out of his command chair as the ship shuddered and lurched to starboard. But the seat abruptly hugged his thighs and pinned him down.
"Thruster flare out!" Wang yelled over the rumble. "Other two nominal."
Then Nathan felt a breath of intense heat pass through him as if he had suddenly hung his head over a barbecue. "Distance to sentries?" he shouted to Kyoko.
"Fifty seconds," she answered, then the ship was tossed violently to port. "Transmitting recognition code."
Struggling to stabilize the tanker but sensing that the starboard units which performed that function were down, Nathan called to Wang. "Paul, get ready to acquire targets should our recognition code be jammed. Or if we manage to fly right into one."
"Aye-aye."
"I don't believe it," Damphousse said. "Bogeydope. Another squadron of Chigs waiting for us beyond the sentry web."
That settled it for Nathan. With a nuclear explosion on their tail, a web of deadly sentry satellites before them, and an enemy squadron waiting if they managed to survive all of that, the only way to live was to go in, fangs out, howling either to victory or death. "I'm taking us toward that squadron," he told everyone.
Her brow knit in disbelief, Kyoko shook her head.
"I'm doing it."
Turning reluctantly back to her panel, Kyoko's arms disappeared in the wall as she took NAV readings, and Nathan felt both the decreasing vibration of the explosion's shock wave and the slight jerk of his course correction.
"Feels like we're coming out of the wash," Shane said, then rubbed away the sweat on her mouth.
"And heading right into a nest of Chigs," Wang added.
"They'll be expecting us to evade," Nathan explained. "You watch 'em. They'll split into a blooming rose chase, and we'll fly right through the center."
"Sentry number one, two-point-one-three Ks off the port bow. Sentry number two, two-point-five-seven Ks off the starboard bow. Codes received and recognized," Kyoko said.
"Something went right for a change," Damphousse muttered.
"Paul, set com to three-two-three-point-one. Squawk at five-one-five-four," Nathan ordered. "The second we're out of range of those sentries, I wanna be skipchatting with Wolfpack Six."
"When we're out of range of those sentries, we'll be in range of the fighters," Wang pointed out somberly.
Abruptly, Nathan found himself under the scrutinizing eyes of everyone in the crew compartment, and Shane's gaze threw off the most heat. "We'll have to hold the figh
ters off until support arrives." And Nathan had a hard time believing they could do that himself.
Wang turned back to his station. "Hey, got that flamed-out thruster back on line."
"Good," Nathan said, and he felt the grave atmosphere lift a little as everyone refocused themselves back on their duties.
"And we're out of sentry range in three, two, one," Kyoko said.
"Com open," Wang reported. "Fighters coming in."
Nathan tilted his head up a little and directed his voice to the organic microphone set into the ceiling. "Wolfpack Six? This is Silver Bullet squadron. Copy?"
"Count nine birds on intercept course," Wang broke in. "Range thirty Ks."
An organic speaker also mounted in the ceiling crackled to life. "Roger Silver Bullet squadron," the com officer on duty acknowledged.
Then Colonel McQueen's voice sounded. "Silver Bullets, have you on LIDAR. Detected explosion. Air support already—"
The comlink was cut off as the cockpit's ceiling quaked violently, and its internal glow began to wink out here and there. Then all was quiet. Then another salvo struck the ship, and Nathan once again felt the command chair hug his hips.
"Where the hell did they come from?" Wang asked. "I got the squadron at twenty Ks out now, but visual's telling me they're right here!"
"Dummy image," Shane said. "They baited us with it." Nathan slid his hands into the control holes and banked hard to starboard. At least he would make getting a bead on the tanker difficult for the enemy.
"They're strafing us too fast to get a lock," Wang said nervously.
"Fire at 'em anyway!" Nathan screamed.
"All right, you bastards," Wang said, flipping his gaze from the viewscreen to his controls. "Get some of this." But even as Wang unleashed a fierce, steady volley of bolts, a lone Chig fighter broke away from the pack and dove head-on toward the tanker. Yet the fighter's pilot did not open up his laser or conventional cannons; he simply held his suicidal course.