by Rick Partlow
"Hey, here we are," McKay interrupted, feeling the car come to a halt. "Thanks for the explanation, Doc, I really appreciate it. Maybe we can talk more later."
"It was my pleasure, Captain," the man assured him, beaming, as they kicked out of the lift and floated into the station's auxiliary docking bay.
Shannon, he saw, was there already, along with Gunny Lambert and two of the orbital station's department heads: Sandra Cerrano, a senior investigator for the Spaceflight Safety Commission, and Dr. Kwane Munfimi, the expedition's chief xenobiologist—all gathered around a massive, dingy-white object, its semi-ovoid shape somehow familiar to McKay, but its outline oddly lumpy and irregular. It took Jason a moment to realize what the thing was: an unopened Invader drop-pod.
"Holy shit," he murmured, slowly floating forward. "Where the hell did you find this thing?"
"Floating in high orbit," Cerrano answered him. She was an unassuming, mousey young woman with black hair cut severely short. "There used to be a small rocket pack attached to the ass-end of the pod to kick it into the atmosphere; it apparently failed to ignite."
"So the...biomechs are still in there?" McKay eyed the pod uncomfortably.
"We're about to find out," Lambert told him. He pointed to a series of wires running from the pod's diameter to a small control box held by Sandra Cerrano. "She's about to pop the sucker open."
"I would advise everyone," Cerrano said, raising the control box, "to move back against the wall."
They'd hardly had time to attempt to follow her direction when she hit the control and the explosive bolts that ringed the pod ignited with a series of sharp bangs that made Jason's ears pop. A hiss of carbon dioxide escaped from the pod's innards as it split down the middle like a coconut, the halves floating apart until they came up against the netting that was stretched over the opposite sides of the bay.
McKay tensed as an armored shape drifted out of one of the hemispheres, but it hovered motionless between the pod halves, limp and lifeless. Cerrano and Munfimi moved eagerly toward the pod, joined a bit more hesitantly by the others. Munfimi, a slim, lanky man with eyes that seemed to be too large for his head, approached the ejected Invader trooper; while Cerrano inspected the inside of the pod.
"What's the stuff covering the outside?" Jason asked the Spaceflight Safety investigator, trying not to come too close to the armored troop while Munfimi worked at the fastenings of its armor.
"Styrofoam, believe it or not," the woman told him. "Simple and cheap, but very efficient---it's nonreflective to radar or laser sensors. Unless you had a telescope trained on the thing, you'd never see it."
"Another anomaly," Shannon said, watching Munfimi pull the helmet off the biomech. The corpse was perfectly preserved, its black eyes staring into nothingness. "Aside from the genetic engineering used to produce the biomechs, every piece of technology we've seen so far is retro."
"Especially the weapons," Lambert commented, prying the assault rifle from the trooper's harness and turning the bullpup-configuration firearm over in his hands. "I've shot a lot of antique pieces, but this..." He popped out the magazine and scowled at the brass-cased rounds within. "Jeez, brass cases, steel-core bullets---nobody's used this shit for the last hundred years."
"Everything we've seen is a century obsolete," Shannon said emphatically. "Take that heavy-lift shuttle we blew at the spaceport: binary-propellent liquid chemical rockets, for God's sake. We've been using solid-fuel particle-bed nuclear engines since the end of the last century. I don't think I've seen anything like that shuttle except in a museum..." She trailed off, a thoughtful look settling over her features. "A museum," she repeated.
Jason turned from the edge of the pod, staring at her curiously.
"What is it?" he asked her.
"I have seen that shuttle in a museum," she declared. "Or, rather, one almost identical to it. The National Air and Space Museum in the States. There was a scale model of a launch vehicle just like that shuttle---it was a Russian Protectorate spacecraft, one of the ones Antonov used to set up his Lunar base."
"Those were heady times," Kovalev said, his voice almost wistful. "My grandfather was an engineer for Premier Antonov's space program---he escaped to the U.S. just days before the nuclear exchange. He used to put me and my brothers to bed at night with tales of the rise of the Protectorate." He looked each of them in the eye. "I know that Antonov is seen as a dictator nowadays, but at the time, he was seen by the poor and powerless of Eastern Europe as a savior, coming forward to lead Mother Russia back to her days of glory. And, for a time, he did. He got us back into space, reaching to the asteroid belt and bringing back precious mineral resources. Had he not become foolishly involved with the Chinese Conflict, history might have treated him much differently. Even today, among the survivors, the tales are told that Premier Antonov did not die in the bombardment, but escaped with his most loyal troops in the Protectorate's remaining spaceships to hide somewhere in the asteroid belt."
"That's where I've seen this gun before." Gunny Lambert looked up from the Invader rifle, only half-listening to Kovalev's reminiscence. "I shot one of these puppies at Camp Perry---it's an old Russian Kalashnikov AKL-99 automatic rifle..." He stopped in midsentence, suddenly aware of what he'd just said, and his head snapped up, eyes wide.
Shannon looked from him to Kovalev and back again, and Jason's gaze danced back and forth between all three of them.
"Pardon me," Sandra Cerrano spoke up from the drop pod, "but just what the hell are you talking about?"
"It adds up," Shannon admitted. "The biomechs were created from human DNA by someone or something. They had to get the material somewhere. They obtained or copied their weapons and equipment from the same place they got the genetic material---from survivors of the Russian Protectorate who escaped to the Belt during the nuclear exchange."
"But that's just a rumor," Kovalev protested. "A legend."
"I think we have dramatic proof right here," Shannon pointed out, "that it was based on fact."
There was a moment of stunned silence as the impact of her statement sunk home.
Gunny Lambert finally chuckled, still looking at the rifle. "Well, the xenobiologists are sure gonna be pissed."
Jason shook his head. "That can't be all there is to it. Even if you're right---even if some of the Russians did escape to the Belt, and even if they were somehow captured by some alien intelligence who used them to produce these biomechs, why wait a hundred years to make a move? Why copy the Russian technology if they could get as close to us as the Belt? Why not just snatch a modern cargo hauler and use that technology?"
"He's right," Kovalev agreed. "I can believe that the DNA and the weapons came from Antonov's ships, but that is not the whole story. If you are right about everything else you say..." He frowned, as taciturn as Jason had seen him. "There was another rumor my grandfather heard in the days before the War. He never really believed it, but its spread was severely discouraged---men and women who told it disappeared---so he did not forget it." His face contorted, as if he didn't want to continue. "The first mission to the asteroid belt, there was much publicity surrounding it. It was more of a political statement than a scientific expedition---Mother Russia regaining her ascendancy and all that. There was much embarrassment when contact was lost with the two ships. Officially they were listed as lost, but my grandfather heard from a woman involved with the training that she saw one of the men who was on one of the ships." Kovalev's heavy breathing had sent him floating off to one side and he came up against the far wall unprepared, grunting as he grasped for a handhold.
"Sorry," he said, wincing. "This woman said she saw the man being rushed from a landing shuttle to a security vehicle. She asked around with a friend she knew who was the local intelligence officer. He had heard something---he said one of the ships had come back. The crew said they had... fallen? Fallen through a hole in space somewhere in the asteroid belt. Both ships had gone through this hole, but only they had arrived on the other sid
e."
"A hole in space?" Cerrano repeated dubiously. "As a physicist, don't you find that a bit hard to swallow?"
"As a physicist, Ms. Cerrano," Kovalev said, staring at her, his good-natured long-windedness quashed by the eerie atmosphere which had descended upon the occupants of the bay, "I know about such possibilities as singularities, wormholes and many things I would find 'hard to swallow.' But many of them exist, nonetheless."
"This gateway," Shannon asked him. "It was supposed to lead to another solar system?"
"My grandfather's colleague assumed so, but she disappeared before she could tell him anything else."
"So let me get this straight." Jason held up a hand, face screwed up in consternation. "You're saying that over a hundred years ago, a Russian spaceship stumbled upon some kind of gate somewhere in the asteroid belt that transported them to another star system. They came back, but before anything could be done about it, the Sino-Russian War breaks out and Antonov took a ship and went back through that hole. Then, somewhere on the other side, something got hold of him and his crew and his technology, a century later, and decided to use it to invade a colony world to loot a few computers?"
"Yes, that's the troubling part." Munfimi agreed. "Even assuming the other details are true, which is quite a leap---forgive me, Dr. Kovalev---then we still fall upon the question, why attack Aphrodite? If they needed resupply, why not simply continue to hijack our ships, as they obviously have been? They must surely have expended more resources attacking this colony than they recouped in their occupation."
"Yeah," Lambert agreed. "And after we blew the spaceport, they didn't even try to reestablish a beachhead---they just pulled out. What's with that?"
"Oh, my God."
All heads turned at Jason's almost involuntary utterance. His face seemed pale, his eyes staring intently into space.
"Anybody ever heard," McKay asked quietly, "of the Spanish Civil War?"
"Shit, you're right," Shannon blurted.
"What?" Munfimi wanted to know. "What's this got to do with Spain?"
"You know about World War Two?" Jason asked the man. "Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust?" The xenobiologist nodded. "Back before the war started, Hitler installed a puppet government in power in Spain. The Democrats rebelled against it, and Hitler used the revolution as an opportunity to test his military machine before he threw it at the rest of Europe. Kind of a dress rehearsal."
"Do you really think that’s it, sir?" Lambert asked him, seeming worried. "I mean, we're assuming an awful lot, aren't we?"
"Yeah, and assuming usually makes an ASS out of U and ME, I know," Jason acknowledged. "But Colonel Mellanby sent us out here to get some answers, and this is as close as we've come."
"You think they did this as a...'dress rehearsal,' then?" Kovalev asked him. "But a rehearsal for what?"
"There's only one target worth that kind of effort," Jason explained. "And that's Earth."
Chapter Fifteen
"Once we have a war, there is only one thing left to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war."---Ernest Hemingway.
Shannon sipped carefully at her cappuccino, watching the pedestrians stroll casually through Reagan Plaza, reveling in the unseasonable warmth of the New York autumn.
They don't know, she thought. They're walking around with their heads up their ass like it's any other day.
"Would you like anything else?" the waiter asked her. This was one of Capital City's more upscale street bistros, with real live people to wait on you instead of the usual robot serving carts and computerized menu screens.
She shook her head. "I'm waiting for someone."
He gave a disinterested nod and wandered off to find a better tipper, leaving her alone with her thoughts. It seemed odd to be back on Earth again so soon, as if she'd stepped right off the arid plains of Aphrodite and onto the streets of Capital City. It had happened almost that fast.
"Somebody has to go back," Jason had said, out of thin air, as they lay together in his small cabin aboard the research base. "Colonel Mellanby needs to hear what we’ve found out."
"It should be one of us," she agreed, turning over to face him. His hair was tousled and unruly from their lovemaking, making the serious expression he wore seem strangely incongruous. "One can take the courier and the other can stay and wrap up the investigation, then bring back the Patton."
"Who goes?" He grimaced, obviously disliking the idea but knowing she was right.
"I'll go," she volunteered.
"Are you sure?"
"I've had enough of being a leader of men to last me a while," she said.
"What if we're too late?" Jason's eyes stared through the walls, trying to see all the way back home. "What if they've already done it?"
"Then I won't stay long," she answered, smiling.
He glanced back at her, something behind his eyes even more serious than the idea of an alien invader.
"Be careful, okay?" he said quietly. "I...I love you."
"I'll be careful," she told him, burying her face in the crook of his arm. "I promise."
She still wondered, sitting there nearly two months later in a corner of Reagan Plaza, why she had avoided telling him her feelings. The question had haunted her strung-out g-sleep dreams, and had been on her mind even as she sat in Colonel Mellanby's office up in Republic Spacefleet Headquarters this morning.
He'd listened to her report in silence, eyes as cold as flint, not showing a bit of surprise---as if he'd come up with this idea months ago and was only waiting for her to come a couple dozen light years and confirm it.
"I know there's a lot of unanswered questions in our theory," she'd concluded, "but we felt like we should get what we had to you now and let you make the call, sir."
"You did the right thing," he told her. "I'm not a hundred percent sold on this link to the Russians, but at least two things are abundantly clear. Whoever was behind the attack on Aphrodite knows enough about us to use our genetic material to create these biomechs.” He sat back in his chair, his expression as close to worried as she'd ever seen it. "And secondly, McKay's right about the purpose of the attack. It makes no sense as anything but a practice run for an invasion of Earth."
"What are we going to do, sir?" Shannon asked, hoping he would have an answer that she hadn't thought of yet.
"What I'm going to do," he said, rising from his chair so abruptly it startled her, "is get myself an immediate audience with President Jameson and apprize him of the situation. After that, your guess is as good as mine."
"What about me, sir?" she asked him, hopping to her feet as he strode quickly to the door.
"Take some leave, Lieutenant, but don't lose your comlink, in case anything comes up." He paused just a step away from her, fixing her with a curious glance. "What is it, Lieutenant?"
"Sir?" She shook her head, confused. She felt intensely uncomfortable this close to him, as if she were hand-feeding an uncaged leopard.
"You've got something beside this threat report on your mind. And anything serious enough to preoccupy you when we're facing a possible attack from aliens has to be worth my attention."
She swallowed hard, not accustomed to having her feelings so easily read.
"It's...," she stuttered, feeling as if she were compelled to answer him. "It's about Jason, sir...Captain McKay."
"He's a good man," Mellanby agreed, as if he hadn't picked up her train of thought. "I trust you two have developed a good working relationship?" There was a glint in his eye that she would have described as mischievous on someone lacking his reputation.
"Well, yes," she answered quickly, fighting a sinking feeling that this conversation was rapidly spinning out of control. "That's...I mean, we've become very close..."
"I would hope so," the Snake said with a grin. "After all, you'll be working together for a long time---quite possibly the rest of your careers." She began to shake her head, still believing he was missing her point, but
she was interrupted by his quiet, surprisingly friendly laugh. "Shannon," he said, using her first name for the first time since she'd known him, "whatever is between you and Jason personally is your own business, as long as it doesn't interfere with your performance. And as far as I can determine, it hasn't as yet. Does that assuage your concerns?"
"Yes, sir." She smiled gratefully. "Thank you."
"Go take some leave," he ordered, then stepped purposefully out the door, leaving her alone in his office.
She'd followed his advice, calling her mother in Ireland to let her know she'd be visiting within a couple days---and making one more call, to wrap up some unfinished business.
Shannon looked up from her glass and saw that unfinished business striding across the plaza, backlit by the setting sun, dressed in black. She had a sudden urge to run to him, to throw herself into his arms and run away to some secluded spot for an afternoon of passion. But something stood in her way: something with brown hair and earnest grey eyes and a crooked smile---something called love.
She stood as Nathan Tanaka approached, pulling off his mirrored sunglasses.
"I did not think," he said, kissing her hand lightly, "that I would be seeing you again so soon---if ever."
"Neither did I," she admitted, feeling her way back into her chair and waving him into the seat opposite her. "I felt I should apologize for the way I treated you back on Aphrodite."
"There is nothing to apologize for, Shannon," he told her. "I don't believe either of us exchanged marriage vows or promises of faithfulness, unless I was asleep."
Shannon chuckled softly, covering his hand with hers.
"I know," she agreed. "We were both consenting adults with no illusions about sex. But there was no excuse for my avoiding you."
"You and Captain McKay had a lot of catching up to do," Nathan reasoned. "I would not have begrudged you that time together. I could see in your eyes the feelings between you. Even when we were together, I could see it."