by Rick Partlow
“Of course,” Jameson assented readily. “Have her read into the situation as soon as possible, bearing in mind our attack plans should be subject to change with respect to whether we intend to destroy the alien technology or take it into our possession. Anything else?”
“Yes, sir,” McKay said with a nod. “We need to alert all colonies to beef up their port security procedures.” He shrugged. “It’s locking the barn door after the horse has escaped, but we’d look pretty damn silly if we didn’t do it and then the Protectorate pulled the same thing off again.”
“Good point,” Jameson said and McKay saw that Kage was nodding in agreement as well. “I’ll have that alert sent out immediately. Is that it?”
McKay debated internally whether to say it, then decided that it was time to go all in. “One other thing, sir: I think we should go ahead and commit the second probeship.”
Jameson chuckled and for a moment, McKay thought the man was actually in a good humor. “Didn’t think you’d forgotten about that,” the President said. “All right, consider it done.”
Then Jameson’s face abruptly turned serious and he came to his feet, stepping around his desk. “One thing, though, gentlemen, and I cannot stress this enough: the official line from this administration and every single person under my command both on and off the record is that Sergei Antonov is dead, period, full stop.”
He looked McKay and Kage in the eye, each of them in turn, making sure he saw acceptance there. “There will be no leaks to the press about duplicates. This,” he jabbed a finger at the frozen image of Antonov, “was a computer simulation done by the terrorists. Later on, after we take out Novoye Rodina, we can admit that the terrorists were aided by remnants of the Protectorate, but not Antonov. The man is dead and he has been for four years. Am I clear?”
General Kage stood from his chair and nodded firmly. “Abundantly, sir.”
McKay hesitated a moment longer than the Colonial Guard officer, but finally he came to attention and performed his best parade field salute. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said with clipped-off military precision to his words.
Jameson’s lip half-curled, as if he weren’t quite sure whether McKay was mocking him or not, but then he snorted a laugh, came to attention himself and returned McKay’s salute just as smartly, with reflexes learned in his youth as a Marine junior officer.
“You’ve got a hell of a way of saying ‘I told you so,’ McKay,” he said, ironic appreciation in his tone. “It’s a damn good thing for you that I can’t afford to fire you.”
“Sir,” McKay said earnestly as he relaxed from attention, “it’s a damn good thing for both of us.”
Chapter Six
D’mitry Podbyrin stared at the white plastic walls that surrounded him and wondered if he had made the right decision. True, he no longer hurt every time he moved and McKay had even made an appointment for him to go to a local hospital for medical nano treatments that would reverse some of the persistent effects of his very advanced age. And he had actually slept through the night these last few days, something that hadn’t been the case for almost as long as he could remember.
But the tiny compartment in the emergency barracks where he’d been quartered the last few days was not much of an improvement on a cabin in the Alaskan interior. While he wasn’t strictly a prisoner, there was nowhere for him to go.
It is not McKay that has made me a prisoner, he thought, it is time. He shook his head. I should have died on the Sheridan.
With a sigh, he shifted on the edge of his bunk, debating whether to turn on the small entertainment console or simply put on the projection glasses and lay on his back while he explored the net. A knock on the door put that decision out of his mind. It was a hollow, plastic knock on the cheap polymer of the temporary quarters. He stood and moved the two steps from the bed to the door, palming the lock then pushing it open. The oppressive humidity outside bullied its way past the air conditioning of the small room with breathtaking ease.
Jason McKay stood there outside the door, one hand against the wall. He wore sunglasses but Podbyrin could still detect a look on his face that he had come to know indicated frustration.
“Good afternoon, Jason,” Podbyrin said, somewhat surprised to see him. “It’s a bit cramped, but if you’d like to come in…”
“Let’s take a walk instead,” McKay suggested, waving at the Russian.
Podbyrin shrugged and then slipped into his shoes before joining the American outside. McKay led him away from the cluster of temporary offices and quarters, away from the creaks and groans and crashes of the disaster site and its never-ending parade of heavy machinery, and onto the pedestrian walkway that led to a plush greenway between the housing complexes.
Podbyrin stared at the occasional jogger on the smooth sidewalk, wondering how they could manage to find the energy to run in the blazing afternoon heat. He stared just as openly at the parents pushing strollers with infant children. Children seemed alien to him: he suddenly realized that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a child.
“You know, D’mitry,” McKay said finally, “I felt pretty damn guilty about you back in the day.”
“When you thought you’d got me killed, you mean?” Podbyrin surmised, barking a humorless laugh.
“Yeah,” McKay admitted, frowning. “I yanked you out of the life you’d built on Loki and dragged you into a war. I don’t blame you for not wanting to let us know you’d survived.”
“Do not feel so bad, Jason,” Podbyrin told him, eyes automatically drawn to yet another mother with a toddler walking past them. “My life on Loki was not a pleasant one and death in a space battle seemed like a reasonable alternative at the time.” He shot McKay a glance. “But I don’t think you brought me out here just to apologize.”
“Not just that, no,” McKay admitted, looking away from the older man’s dark eyes. “D’mitry, a few days ago, one of the new colonies---a world named Rhiannon in a system we were able to access through the jumpgates---was attacked by the Protectorate. They used a kind of nanovirus---part biological, part nanomachine---on the city of Tintagel there, and it killed every vertebrate life form within a kilometer of the town.” He abruptly stopped walking, pulled off his sunglasses and met Podbyrin’s shocked stare. “Nearly ten thousand people died in less than an hour.”
“Iisus Khristos,” Podbyrin muttered. “That…that’s…”
“Is that what you were working on for Antonov before the war?” McKay asked. His voice was neutral, not accusatory, but to Podbyrin it seemed as if he were pronouncing a judgment.
“It was…” Podbyrin hesitated, shocked enough that he had to struggle to find his English once again. “It was one of the things. We had tried to engineer modified bioweapons, to let the alien machines duplicate them for us; and yes, we had tried using nanotechnology, but we could not seem to get anything that could live outside a lab. We had begun to concentrate on weaponized versions of existing viruses instead.”
“So,” McKay said slowly, thoughts moving quickly behind his eyes, “you weren’t able to make the nanovirus?”
“No.” The old man shook his head vigorously. “We didn’t have the base level of nanotechnology to make something durable enough, even with the help of the machines.”
“I have a question then, D’mitry,” McKay said quietly, replacing his sunglasses and glancing back the way they’d come. “If you didn’t have the technology, and we don’t have the technology…who the hell does have that capability?”
Podbyrin was working his mouth trying to come up with an answer to that unanswerable question when McKay’s ‘link chirped for attention.
“Yes?” the Intelligence officer responded, touching his ear bud to activate it. A pause as he listened to a voice Podbyrin couldn’t hear, and his face took on an annoyed twist. “Why? What’s up?” Another pause and what might have been a hint of a smile. “We’ll be right there.”
“What is it?” Podbyrin asked him.
&nbs
p; “Agent Carr might prove to be something more than an ankle weight after all,” McKay said with a hint of sarcasm. “She thinks she’s found out who Yuri is.”
The image was two dimensional and a bit washed out, but the man’s face was clear enough that Franks could see the cold glint in his blue eyes. His jaw was strong, his nose straight and narrow and his hair was long and dark, tied into a ponytail at his back. He was thin but with a look of wiry strength to him, with large, rough hands. His clothes were nondescript and unadorned but well-fitting and…precise. That was the word that Franks thought best suited the man in the photo.
“Is this the man, D’mitry?” General McKay asked the old Russian, who was standing in the conference room, staring at the photo projected on the main screen.
Franks saw the Russian squinting at the photo and he wondered if the old man’s eyes had gone bad. It seemed plausible; even though the man’s life had been extended by the alien technology---through the use of organ transplants and stem cell treatments, from what the Russian had told them---he hadn’t had access to the Republic’s idea of modern medical treatment.
“I think it is him,” Podbyrin said with a slow nod. “This must be from long ago. His hair is shorter now, and his face looks older. His nose is not so straight any more either. But yes, I think that is Yuri.”
“The name we have for him is Anatoly Simonov,” Agent Carr announced from her seat near the head of the conference table. She looked, Franks thought, more confident and less intimidated now. She also looked very attractive, he had to admit now that he’d spent some time with her when he wasn’t sleep-deprived and fresh off a combat mission. She was still a bit tight-laced but there was a spark behind those brown eyes…
Franks shook himself free of his reverie as he realized she was still speaking. “He was arrested by the Fairbanks police fifteen years ago during a raid on suspected fab-code pirates, but released due to there being no evidence that he was involved. He wasn’t on the grid, had no ID chip, no records, but the local cops didn’t think too much about it---like I told you, a lot of Russian exiles are off the grid.” She sighed. “And that is the last time that we have any record of this man anywhere.”
“Wonderful,” Franks said, slumping in his chair. “Back to the starting blocks.”
“Not quite,” she corrected him. “That’s the last official record we have of Anatoly Simonov…but we do have some chatter about a man named Yuri.” She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “I can’t promise it’s the same man since there’s no description, but over the last six or seven years, there’s been the occasional mention of a man named Yuri among CIS informants. Nothing concrete, nothing with enough detail to trigger an investigation, just a name that people have heard from someone who’s heard from someone that…well, you get the idea. There was no specific mention of who he was or even what he was, but if something big enough and important enough was building, someone would always mention that Yuri had been signed off on it.”
“Any mention of a location?” McKay asked her.
“Everything always comes back to Fairbanks,” she said. “That’s where the bratva hide in plain sight, concealed among the large Russian exile community. There are other Exile districts in Anchorage, Juneau and Seward, but Fairbanks is the largest in North America.”
“Sir,” Franks interjected, and McKay turned to face him, “are we taking the position that the terrorist attacks and the attack on Rhiannon are linked to the bratva that held Colonel Podbyrin captive?”
McKay thought about that for a beat, steepling his fingers on the table in front of him. “The Rhiannon attack was the work of the Protectorate: it was done using technology from Novoye Rodina. Antonov’s message links the terrorist attacks to the Protectorate as well.”
“Are we accepting that it’s actually Antonov,” Carr asked him, “and not just a sim?”
“Our comm guys tore that message apart,” Franks told her, making an effort to be more pleasant than he had when he’d first met her. “They couldn’t find any definitive evidence that it was fake.” He shrugged. “That’s not proof, but if it’s a fake, it’s a damn good one.” He turned back to McKay. “Sir, I think Houston is played out. We aren’t getting anywhere finding any locals who knew the bombers, we’ve found no trace at all of the explosives anywhere near the buildings and everything else is work for the techs upstairs,” he pointed a thumb upward, indicating Fleet Headquarters.
“I’m heading back up tonight,” McKay told him, nodding agreement. “Vinnie and Jock are heading back to the special ops school. I’m leaving Manning and her platoon with you and Agent Carr, in case you need some muscle, along with the lander and its flight crew.” He stood from his chair and Franks came to his feet as well, as McKay was the senior officer in the room, but McKay walked over to Podbyrin instead. The Russian finally looked away from the projected image and locked eyes with McKay.
“D’mitry,” he said, clasping the man’s shoulder, “I’m sending Franks and Agent Carr to Fairbanks to get a line on Yuri. I’d like you to go with them. I’m not asking you to go out into the field, but I’d like you to stay in their operations center and monitor via remote camera, so you can give them a realtime notice if you see anyone you remember from your time with the bratva before you were sent off to the compound.”
He paused. “Can you do that? If you can’t, you can come up to Fleet HQ with me and do the same thing. The only reason I’d rather you were on the ground is the signal delay…it’s only a couple seconds roundtrip from the LaGrangian points, but that can be significant when we’re trying to identify someone on the street.”
“I’ll go with them,” Podbyrin replied with a shrug, something hollow and lifeless to his voice. “One place is as good as another.”
Franks saw McKay’s hesitation and he wondered just how far gone the Russian was… From what he’d audited in the reports, the man wasn’t that sane before he’d spent four years in the Alaskan interior with a bunch of people he couldn’t talk to.
After that almost imperceptible pause, McKay patted Podbyrin’s shoulder where he’d held it then let his hand slide away. “Franks,” he said, “until and unless the tech teams and the netdivers come up with something here, Yuri is the only string we have to hang onto.”
“I understand, sir,” Franks said with a nod. “I’ll get the job done.”
“Yes, you will,” McKay said as he headed out of the room.
Franks swallowed hard. What his commander had said had not been in the tone of a vote of confidence so much as an unspoken threat.
* * *
Shannon Stark tried to steel herself for the transition through the wormhole, but it never helped. There didn’t seem to be any way to prepare for it. Even more annoying, she’d found that it took her longer to get over the disorientation than most others; so by the time her eyes refocused and her brain slipped into gear, she could already hear the members of the Triton’s bridge crew announcing the ship’s post-jump status.
“We’re getting confirmation from the Amun gate’s sensor records, ma’am,” Lt. Baker, the Commo Officer was saying. “The freighter passed through the A gate less than 72 hours ago.”
“What was his trajectory?” Captain Pirelli asked. Shannon was impressed with the young officer: she’d been worried when the woman had received an early promotion to Captain four years ago after the second war with the Protectorate, but Pirelli had proven to be a consummate professional.
“Sending the data to Tactical,” Baker said.
Lt. Commander Milankovic’s eyes scanned the readout quickly, then the thin-faced man frowned. “Their trajectory isn’t towards any of the other gates insystem,” the Tactical Officer reported. “From what I can tell, he was heading for Horus,” he indicated the Jupiter-sized gas giant that dominated the Amun system. The multicolored streaks in its atmosphere made it look like a Christmas ornament on the main screens. “Probably one of the moons.”
Shannon pulled her tablet from her uniform pocket and
unfolded it, swiftly bringing up the data for Horus.
“Only one of the moons is developed,” she announced, eyes still on the tablet. “Sekhmet…it’s the outermost of the large satellites. There’s an automated methane processing plant.”
“Orders, ma’am?” Captain Pirelli looked to her. Theoretically, they were the same rank---Fleet Captain was equivalent to Marine or Intelligence Colonel; but in practice, Shannon Stark was the second in command of the Intelligence service and Pirelli’s operational superior. That realization sometimes sent a vague feeling of shock through Shannon’s mind whenever it hit her. She was 35 years old and not only was she a full bird Colonel, but she was also one of the most powerful officers in the Republic military. She wondered how surreal it must feel for Jason…
“Take us to Sekhmet, Captain,” Shannon ordered. “And tell your Marine reaction platoon to get suited up, just in case.”
“There is no way in hell they should still be here,” Angela Pirelli muttered, hands clenched on the ends of the armrests of her acceleration couch.
Watching the bridge display from the seat behind the Captain’s, Shannon silently agreed with her. It had been nearly a week since the attack: plenty of time for the freighter to be long gone, hidden or destroyed or its registry changed. And yet there it was, orbiting around Sekhmet as if it weren’t the most hunted ship in human space. There was nothing exceptional about it: it looked like any other independent freighter, with bulbous fuel pods feeding a bell shaped fusion chamber in the oversized back end, while the cargo was stored in heavy lift shuttles that were cradled in shielded berths that hugged the sides of the crew compartments.
“One of the shuttles is gone,” Shannon said quietly, studying the sensor readout and noting the hollow in the side of the freighter’s armored crew compartment.