by Jay Allan
Li looked down at the com unit. He had no idea if there was anyone in range…except for the AOL, of course. He’d caught a glimpse of at least one pursuer when he’d been about halfway up the hillside. He didn’t know who it was, but he’d decided to find a good place and set up an ambush. But then he saw the speed of his adversary, and he got a cold feeling in his stomach. One word went through his head. Supersoldier.
He started to panic, and he could feel his heart pounding wildly, sweat dripping down his neck despite the frigid cold. He almost took off and ran, but after a few minutes he managed to get ahold of himself. This was life and death, and he realized if he lost control, he was as good as dead.
I’ll never outrun him, he thought, struggling to hold back the hopelessness. And trying to ambush him is a risky proposition. His eyes, his ears—if I move, if I breathe too hard…he’ll be on me in an instant. And I don’t stand a chance in hand to hand combat, not with one of them…
He’d looked up the steep hillside and realized his best chance—his only chance—was getting to the top and trying to signal for help. He was still in the middle of the wilderness, but the elevation would help. Maybe he could pick up a UNGov airship passing by, or some kind of exploratory party. Something…anything. It was a better risk than trying to outrun a man who could run three times the speed of a normal human, and whose bloodstream would be flooded with adrenalin long after Li himself had collapsed from exhaustion.
And so that’s what he’d done. It had taken another fifteen minutes to reach the top, or close to it anyway. Then he’d flipped on the com unit at maximum power and started talking.
He turned about forty-five degrees, facing southeast instead of due east. The com unit transmitted 360 degrees, but he was directing all its extra power to push the signal farther in the designated direction. He needed every edge he could get.
“Attention all UNGov personnel,” he began again, “this is a report of the utmost…”
He saw the motion, almost too late, but he reacted, ducking just as the figure leapt around a row of boulders and into view, and a series of bullets slammed into the rock wall behind him.
He threw himself to the side, bringing around his own weapon as he did. He looked up, and he got a glimpse of his attacker…just before he felt the impact, bullets slamming into his body. He didn’t feel pain…he didn’t feel much, in fact. Just a strange floating sensation, and weakness…such weakness.
He felt the com unit slip out of his hand. The cold of the pistol was still in his other, but he had no strength to wield it. He tried to lift his arm, bring it around to fire at his attacker, but…nothing. It fell to his side, the weapon slipping slowly from his grip.
He lay on the ground, his eyes looking up at the darkening pre-dusk sky. The cold was gone, even the fear. Even the urgency to call for help. He knew it was too late for that.
A shadow blocked his view of the sky. His assailant, standing above him, looking down.
My killer, he thought with the last bits of lucidity left to him. You won, Supersoldier.
He had a passing thought. Perhaps someone received his message. But he didn’t really care. It was too late for him. It no longer mattered who won the war. He took a last breath, deep, painful. And then the darkness came.
Chapter 6
UNGov Communique GR-201374:
All UNGov installations are hereby instructed to activate class one alert protocols and to report all unidentified contacts or communications signals immediately to the Department of Internal Security, Geneva. Further, any suspicious individuals are to be detained immediately and held for questioning. All regional directors are responsible for supervising the terms of this edict, and all personnel will be held responsible for any failure to comply. This status is in effect until further notice.
“Mr. Bouvaire…” Raj Singh peered around the half open door to his supervisor’s office, looking nervous as he did. “I am sorry to interrupt you, sir, but I think I have something to report.”
Pierre Bouvaire looked up from the tablet he’d been reading. “You think you have something to report?” Bouvaire’s voice was arrogant, impatient. He was a career UNGov bureaucrat, one extremely dissatisfied with his posting…and it showed in his attitude and behavior. “What exactly does that mean?”
Bouvaire was the director of the Salekhard Federal facility. It was far from one of the best posts available for a UN bureaucrat. Indeed, Bouvaire often suspected it was fairly close to the worst. At least on Earth. It was cold, not far from the Arctic Circle, in fact, and essentially a deserted wasteland. Still, Bouvaire would take his position any day over some administrative posting to one of the Portal worlds.
“Ah…well, sir, I picked up…something. It wasn’t a message exactly, it was…”
Bouvaire glared at his subordinate. “Unless you want a transfer to a worse shithole than this, Specialist Singh, you had better start making sense.”
“Yes, Administrator.” Singh struggled to focus. Bouvaire had a reputation for being arbitrary, and sometimes downright abusive to his subordinates, to the point where they only approached him on matters they couldn’t avoid. Singh had almost ignored the small signal he’d detected rather than bring it to his volatile supervisor. But all Federal facilities had been placed on alert and ordered to report anything abnormal. And failing to report something that turned out to be important would carry far more terrible consequences than enduring one of Bouvaire’s tirades.
“I detected something at my station, sir. I believe it was a communication of some kind, a transmission at the extreme edge of detectable range, but I was not able to read anything intelligible. Just a fleeting signal, and a bunch of static…” He paused. “…and something that might be a voice, but barely audible.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small handheld device. He pressed a button and played the twelve second clip.
Bouvaire listened quietly. Then he leaned back and sighed. “That could have been anything. Solar activity. Weather. Your ‘voice’ could just be some interference that happens to sound like speaking. Or maybe it’s some com traffic from one of the mining operations.” There were several major concerns working in the area. The Urals were a rich source of precious minerals, and UNGov-sanctioned mining groups continued to exploit that wealth. Indeed, that was the only reason Bouvaire and his people were here in this forsaken hinterland. The rest of the inhabitants who had called this frozen nightmare home had been relocated decades earlier, as part of UNGov’s efforts to move population into more concentrated, manageable locations. Bouvaire wasn’t sure if he should curse the mines for his frigid near-arctic posting…or thank them for keeping him on Earth instead of on some wretched Portal world. His opinion varied depending on the day, and just how annoying things got. But Singh and his scrap of a signal were pushing him toward cursing the blasted place.
“Yes, sir, but…” Singh paused again, but he caught himself and continued before Bouvaire reacted.
“…it didn’t seem like any kind of natural phenomenon. And I don’t think it was from one of the mines either. For one thing, the direction was all wrong. It was coming from the east, not the north or south.”
“From the east?” Bouvaire shook his head. “You must have made some kind of mistake. There’s nothing to the east for thousands of kilometers. Just frozen tundra.”
“There was no mistake, sir.” Singh’s tone showed defiance, certainty in his work. But he caught himself and pulled the attitude back. Nothing good could come from upsetting Bouvaire any more than necessary. “I definitely picked up a signal, sir. There is something out there. Some kind of transmitter.”
Bouvaire sighed. Singh could have picked up anything. Perhaps there was some kind of government party out there, exploring for resources or on some mapping expedition. He almost told Singh to forget about it, but then he paused, glancing down at his desk. He’d gotten a reminder about the alert status just the day before. He fished around on his desk, finally finding the tablet with the co
mmunique, panning his eyes quickly over it. He had no idea what was going on, what UNGov was looking for. But there was no point in taking a risk, whatever minuscule chance there was that Singh had found anything important. At least if he kicked it upstairs, he could get it off his desk…and cover his ass too.
“Alright, Singh. Get back to your station and clean up that signal the best you can. See what the main AI can do to filter out some of that interference. Then I’ll send it to Geneva.”
“Yes, sir,” Singh replied. Then he nodded and backed out of the door, heading toward his desk.
Bouvaire shook his head. It was nothing important. He was almost sure of it.
But what the hell, at least it will look like I’m taking the alert seriously.
* * *
Drogov stood next to the Portal, looking back over the long line of troops waiting for his order to advance. They looked particularly sinister in their heavy radiation suits, like something from an old comic book or science fiction serial. But they’d need the suits. Drogov couldn’t have imagined the chaos and destruction on the other side of the Portal…if he hadn’t seen it on three other worlds already.
Alexi Drogov was a killer, a cold-blooded practitioner of his trade, but even he’d been shocked by the pure evil genius of Samovich’s plan. He’d always thought UNGov’s policy of never allowing veterans to return from the Portal worlds was a bit harsh. Drogov wasn’t a soldier certainly, but he considered himself somewhat of a fighting man. And be found the idea of abandoning men who’d fought for years, who’d followed orders and won their wars, to be a bit…distasteful. If he hadn’t been so skilled at removing emotions from the equation, he might have even had some reservations about being involved. But what Samovich had sent him to do was an order of magnitude worse than simply denying the warriors a trip home, and he owed his ability to comply to the frozen blood that circulated through his veins.
Samovich knew he couldn’t make an exception and allow the soldiers to return to Earth. As much as he needed the veterans to leaven his hurriedly-assembled forces, he just couldn’t trust their loyalty…not after Taylor had gotten to them. Even these men who had refused to follow Taylor’s army knew that many of their comrades had. Putting them in the line on the other side would be asking for trouble, and it was a gamble the mercurial Samovich hadn’t even seriously considered.
But the Secretary-General had a streak of paranoia to match his brilliance. He worried about leaving these men for too long with no enemy to fight. He’d imagined all kinds of ways they could pose a threat, not the least of which would be forcing their way through the Portals to return home without permission…and once on Earth, if they found Taylor’s army battling UNGov forces, what would they do? It was too great a risk.
Then it had come to him. A way to eliminate any risk from the stranded forces…and to help him defeat Taylor as well. He thought back to UNGov’s original plan to seize power, the deception that had allowed his predecessors to conquer a world, with just a few murders and a series of skillful lies, and he devised his own version. Then he charged his most trusted aide to see to its execution.
UNGov had destroyed most of the weaponry in the arsenals of the nation states decades ago. It had been a self-serving act, driven by fear that one or more of the old governments, or some rebellious splinter group from the disenfranchised military establishments, might use them to challenge the newly-established order. But some weapons still remained, even forty years later. Much of it was non-functional after so many years of neglect, but Samovich had remembered an old report, back in his days as an aide to the Secretariat. Something about salted bombs, cobalt-cased nuclear weapons designed to maximize radiation release, to kill as much population as possible, while leaving buildings and infrastructure more or less intact. They were terrible weapons, ones all the nation-states of Earth had sworn never to build. And yet UNGov inspectors had founds stockpiles of the weapons in at least four national arsenals.
And now, decades after the fearsome bombs had been produced, they had found a purpose. Samovich had planned the entire operation, and Drogov, the loyal henchman, had seen it done. A dozen bombs were sent to each Portal world, hidden in the crates and boxes carrying the normal supplies. And the cleverest, the most wickedly evil part of the plan was the order that preceded it all, the directive to concentrate all forces in base…to prepare to evac back to Earth. An order that kept each the full strength of each army within the lethal zone of the warheads.
Drogov imagined the celebrations, the joy of the soldiers at receiving word they would be going home, that their war was over and they would soon return to families and friends they thought they’d never see again. He was both appalled—and impressed—at the cold ruthlessness of it all.
On each planet, when the devices detonated, more than 99% of the soldiers present died, some almost instantly, from doses of radiation so enormous they simply dropped in place, and others slower, in an hour or two…or five, amid scenes of vomiting and seizures and terrible pain. Some of them would still be alive when Drogov’s troops came through the Portal, but almost all of these would be incapacitated, unable to resist and already condemned to death by the mortal doses they had received. All, perhaps, save a few who were out on guard duty or in some sort of protective structure. And that was what Drogov’s team of security troops was for. Samovich’s command had been clear. No one was to survive. No one.
Drogov’s people had already been to three worlds, and now they prepared to transit to Oceania. The bombs there had been set to detonate an hour earlier, and the small robot scanner Drogov had just sent through confirmed that fact. The paradise world, by far the most magnificent planet men had yet discovered now had a deep wound on its rocky waterfront, a deadly cloud of radiation that would poison streams and rivers, contaminate a large stretch of coastline, and kill everything within a thirty-kilometer radius of the main basecamp, including the human soldiers stationed there. In another few minutes, Drogov would give the order, and his soldiers would begin moving through. They would search the base and its surroundings, and they would shoot down anyone still alive. Then, when they were certain no one was left, not a guard who had run off into the hills, not a wounded man hiding in a shelter somewhere, they would move on to the next world. And when they were done, not a soldier would remain on any of the planets Taylor’s soldiers had visited. There would be nothing left but bodies, and silent ruins of the camps that had once housed armies.
But the warriors of the planetary armies would not have finished their service to UNGov. These dead soldiers were to serve the government’s propaganda needs, become the props in another monstrous lie, one designed to turn the people of Earth against Taylor and their would-be liberators. Samovich and Drogov might have been responsible for the horrifying genocide, but as far as the inhabitants of Earth were concerned, their soldiers were killed by Jake Taylor and his rebels, as retribution for their refusal to join his crazed rampage. Once Drogov had completed his mission of death, Samovich would take to the airwaves, the information networks, even the streets. His propagandists would spread the word about Jake Taylor, the traitor to his race, the human who had gone over to the Tegeri with his murderous comrades…and massacred thousands of loyal Earth soldiers. And Samovich would give his address surrounded by flag-draped coffins, his somber voice, choked with emotion as he eulogized the dead…and promised retribution against the monsters responsible for the heinous act.
Even Drogov’s dark mind had been surprised at the evil brilliance of the plan, and for a moment he felt a strange chill, almost a fear of his longtime associate. What mind could conceive such a plan?
Then he glanced at his chronometer and turned toward the first unit in line. “Advance,” he yelled, with all the authority he could muster. And he watched as his men moved steadily forward, one rank at a time disappearing into the swirling lights of the Portal. On to another world, to another terrible graveyard, like Death himself, to run his scythe through the heaps of dead and dyi
ng men.
Chapter 7
Communiqué Issued from Resistance Headquarters in New York:
I say, while yet from that tower's base afar,
We saw two flames of sudden signal rise,
And further, like a small and distant star,
A beacon answered.
“Well, it is done. The message is sent.” Carson Jones sat on a chunk of broken concrete, looking across the room at the old man he’d known so long. Stan Wickes was standing, and Jones would swear his companion seemed ten years younger than he had a few days before, that some new fire raged within him. The old Marine was clearly ready for a fight.
For all Jones had sworn himself to the struggle against UNGov, now that they had lit the fuse he felt a tidal wave of emotions. Tension, anxiety…fear. Yes, fear, more than he’d ever felt before. He’d always considered himself a courageous man, one ready to fight for what he believed…to die for it if need be. But now he could barely keep himself from shaking as he sat in the abandoned cellar.
“It’s okay, Carson.” Wickes’ voice was odd, soothing in a way Jones couldn’t quite explain, though he felt it quite strongly. “It’s normal. We all feel it.”
“What?” Jones asked, trying as hard as he could to maintain his composure.
“The fear, Carson. The fear before going into battle. You are questioning your courage now, wondering if you are truly ready for what is coming.” Wickes stared at his companion, who looked back, silent, a stunned expression on his face. “Don’t worry, Carson…you will do what you must. We all feel what you are feeling. Any man who says he isn’t scared in battle is lying…or mad.”
Jones looked up, his eye’s meeting his comrade’s. “You mean you’re scared too?”