by Allen Steele
Good grief, he thought, his eyes widening as he gazed upon the sprawl of shacks, hovels, and tents. They’ve actually got people living here? Then the jets kicked up dust around the cockpit and the wheels touched down, and Kim reached forward to pull back the throttles and kill the engines.
“All right, we’re here,” she murmured. “What do you want me to do now?”
“Stay put.” Lee unfastened his seat harness. “Raise the gangway after I’m gone and shut the hatch . . . just in case.”
“Right. Just in case. Captain . . .”
“Open the belly hatch and lower the ramp, please.” He avoided looking at her as he stood up. “If it doesn’t work out . . . well, you’ll know if it doesn’t. Get off the ground and head back to Defiance.” She started to object. “Don’t argue with me. You have your orders.”
“Aye, sir.” She reached to the center console and toggled a few switches; there was a thump beneath the deck as the hatch opened and the gangway began to descend. “Good luck,” she added. “I hope everything works out.”
“Thanks. So do I.” Lee pulled on his jacket, then left the cockpit. As he expected, Dana was waiting for him in the passenger compartment; she’d already opened the inner hatch, and a cool breeze was drifting in. She was putting on her serape, but he shook his head. “Sorry, no. You’re staying here with—”
“Like hell. Where you go, I—”
“No, you’re not.” He planted his hands on her shoulders, backed her into the nearest seat. “Look, you said it yourself . . . there’s a good chance I could be taken hostage. If they get me, that’s fine, but if they get both of us, then they can use you to make me do whatever they want. You’re not going to be able to help me very much, so you’re staying here.”
Tears listened at the corners of her eyes. “Damn it, Robert,” she said softly, “do you have to be so . . . so logical all the time?”
He smiled down at her. “Sorry. Can’t help myself.” He leaned down to kiss her; she wrapped her arms around his neck, and for a few moments they held each other. “Now go forward and keep Kim company,” he said as he released her and stood up. “And close the hatch after I’m gone.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She hesitated. “Robert, I—”
“Me, too.” And then he turned and, ducking his head slightly, headed down the gangway.
Twilight was settling upon the landing field, the evening wind picking up as Bear began to rise to the east. A large crowd of Shuttlefield residents, kept at a distance by a ring of armed Guardsmen, had gathered around the Plymouth; he heard his name being murmured in tones of astonishment as he marched down the ramp, and even the two soldiers waiting to meet him regarded him with awe. Here was Robert Lee, the commanding officer of the Alabama, a figure of history and legend long before they were born. Lee couldn’t help but smile; he probably would have the same reaction if Christopher Columbus suddenly landed in a spaceship.
Enough of this. He turned to the nearest Guardsman. “I’m here to meet with Matriarch Hernandez,” he said, speaking in the pidgin Anglo he’d managed to pick up over the past few years. “Can you take me to her, please?”
“I . . . I . . .” The soldier was speechless, and for a moment Lee thought he’d drop his gun and ask for an autograph. “Yes, of course, but we . . . I mean . . .”
“Captain Lee?” From behind the two Guardsmen, another figure stepped forward. Wearing a dark blue jumpsuit that bore the insignia of the Union Astronautica, he carried an air of authority and obviously was unimpressed with fame. “Permit me to introduce myself,” he said, addressing him in flawless English as he extended his hand. “I’m Captain Fernando Baptiste, commanding officer of the Spirit of Social Collectivism Carried to the Stars.”
The captain of the starship that had brought the Union Guard reinforcements to Fort Lopez. “Pleased to meet you, Captain Baptiste,” he said, formally shaking his hand, “but I had rather expected the Matriarch to be here herself.”
“My apologies, Captain. She’s waiting for you in Liberty, at the community hall. I was sent to escort you to—”
They were interrupted by the sound of the gangway being retracted. Lee turned to watch the ramp fold against the Plymouth’s underside. “You’re a prudent man, Captain,” Baptiste said quietly, as the belly hatch slammed shut. “It might not have occurred to me to take such precautions.”
Lee said nothing as he studied Baptiste from the corner of his eye. He wore the uniform of the enemy, yet Lee sensed no malice in the man; indeed, he had the strong feeling that he was in the presence of a kindred soul. An adversary, perhaps, but possibly a reluctant one. He noted the satphone clipped to Baptiste’s belt, and a new thought occurred to him.
“I’ve learned to be careful,” he said. “Especially when dealing with the Matriarch.”
“Yes . . . of course.” Turning aside, Baptiste beckoned in the direction of Liberty. “If you’ll follow me, please?”
They set out on foot, marching side by side along the long, muddy road that led from the edge of Shuttlefield across fallow farm fields toward Liberty. Despite the Guardsmen who formed a protective ring around them, the crowd continued to follow them, peering through the soldiers, occasionally shouting Lee’s name. At one point his left foot found a pothole in the road; he tripped, started to fall forward, only to find Baptiste reaching out to catch him.
Lee regained his balance, but this small incident told him that, at least for a few minutes, his safety was assured. The Matriarch might have plans for him, but Baptiste meant him no harm. The reception he’d received so far was cordial, but that could easily change. Yet if there was a possibility, however remote it might be, that he might be sympathetic to his cause . . .
The last light of day was waning, and the first stars were appearing in the night sky. He turned his head to peer toward the west, searching the heavens for one particular point of light that should be rising there. “Looking for your ship?” Baptiste stopped, allowing Lee to do so as well. “I think it should be coming over around now.”
“Yes, it should.” There were low clouds in the western skies, obscuring his view. He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes . . . “Captain Baptiste,” he murmured, deliberately keeping his voice low, “have you been able to reach your people on Hammerhead?”
He nodded meaningfully toward Baptiste’s satphone. “That way, no,” Baptiste replied, speaking quietly as well. The soldiers, distracted by the crowd around them, weren’t paying too much attention to the two men. “Too much atmospheric interference. But we’ve been able to communicate with them via short-range radio.” He peered at Lee through the gloom. “Why do you ask?”
Lee hesitated. It was an enormous gamble, and he was all too aware that he was putting many lives at risk, his own included. But if it paid off . . .
“Listen to me,” he whispered. “We don’t have much time. . . .”
1928—URSS ALABAMA
Once again, the starship was dark and silent, its passageways deserted, its compartments cold and lightless. The only movement aboard were those of the maintenance ’bots as they patrolled the corridors and cabins, making minor repairs here and there, making sure that the vessel remained clean.
In the ring corridor on Deck H1, a ’bot stopped to vacuum a clump of dust it had found beneath a hand-painted mural: a young man, leading a procession of figures across a hilltop, a giant ringed planet looming in the background. It had just completed this minor chore when the floor trembled ever so slightly beneath the adhesive soles of its six legs. Registering the disturbance, the ’bot sent an electronic query to its mother system. A fraction of a second later, the AI instructed the machine to return to its niche; the ship was about to engage in a major course maneuver. The ’bot quickly scurried away, its diodes briefly illuminating a work of art that no one would ever see again.
Three hundred yards from the Alabama, a skiff from the Spirit was closing in upon the ship when the ship’s reaction-control rockets suddenly flared. As the pilot watch
ed, its bow pitched downward until it was pointed at the planet far below. He barely had time to report his observation before Alabama’s secondary thrusters ignited, and the giant vessel began to move away from him.
Grabbing his yoke, the skiff pilot fired his RCRs to take his tiny craft to a safe distance. His precaution was wise, for few seconds later Alabama’s main engine came to life, its white-hot flare silently lancing out in space. Through his cockpit window, he watched in awe as the mammoth spacecraft began to fall toward Coyote.
With its main engine burning at full thrust, it took only a few minutes for Alabama to reach the troposphere. The ship wasn’t designed to land upon a planet, yet the deorbit maneuver its captain had programmed into its autopilot guaranteed that it would take a long, shallow dive through the planet’s atmosphere. And even though Alabama wasn’t streamlined, it was still over five hundred feet long, with a dry weight of nearly forty thousand tons.
Even as the massive cone of its Bussard ramscoop disintegrated, bow shock formed an orange-red corona around its spherical fuel tank, until the intense heat of atmospheric friction ignited the last remaining fuel. In the last few seconds, the ’bots shut down for good before the explosion ripped apart the forward decks, and Leslie Gillis’ mural of Prince Rupurt was lost for all time.
Yet the Alabama survived, if only for a little while longer. Just long enough for it to complete one final mission.
1932—LIBERTY, NEW FLORIDA
Robert Lee found Luisa Hernandez waiting for him within the community hall, the place he and the others who’d built it with their bare hands had once called the grange hall. He was pleased to see that the mural of the Alabama that graced one its walls hadn’t been taken down; long benches ran down the length of the floor, and the wood-burning stove that they’d installed to heat the room had been removed, but otherwise it was much the way he’d left it.
The hall was vacant, except for several soldiers positioned near the windows. The Matriarch stood near the middle of the room, another Union Guard soldier close behind her, a Savant standing nearby. As Lee entered, a Guardsmen stepped in front of him; with no preamble or apologies, he quickly patted Lee down, searching for any hidden weapons. Lee submitted to the search, taking the moment to size up the woman standing before him.
She’d aged quite a bit since the last time he’d seen her; her hair had grown longer, and it was thin and tinged with grey. The lines of her face had become sharper, her stout figure less fulsome. Even so, Lee reflected, there had seldom been any days in which she’d had to skip a meal or nights in which she’d slept in the cold. Others might have starved while she tried to sustain a cocoon of comfort around herself, but no one survives Coyote without feeling the hardships of the frontier.
The soldier completed his task, turned to the Matriarch, and nodded. “Captain Lee,” she said, as if none of this had happened. “Good to see you again.”
“Matriarch.” Behind him, he heard the front doors close, shutting out the crowd that had followed him from the landing field. Only Baptiste had accompanied him inside, and he stood off to one side, his hands behind his back. “You’re well, I take it.”
“It’s been a long winter.” An offhand shrug beneath her robe; the same one she’d worn the first time they had met, Lee observed, yet noticeably faded, patched in several places with swamper hide. “Care to sit?” she asked, gesturing to the nearest table; as her hand rose, he caught a glimpse of the pistol holstered beneath her robe. “Perhaps some coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Lee remained standing. “Matriarch, about the eruption . . .”
“Yes, of course.” Still maintaining a pose of amicability, she took a seat, crossing her legs and folding her arms across her chest. “You’re concerned about the long-term effects, and nor can I blame you. Defiance and the other settlements on Midland will undoubtedly suffer quite a bit from it.”
“No question about it, but so will you. New Florida’s distance from Mt. Bonestell matters little. This may be the last warm day we’ll experience for quite a while. And you know as well as I do how much we depend upon regular crop rotations to keep everyone fed.”
“Oh, come now.” She gave him a condescending smirk. “I doubt it’ll be as serious as you believe. And even if it is, we’re not entirely at the mercy of nature. Greenhouses can be built, hydroponics can be implemented.”
“I agree. If we act now, the worst of this can be mitigated. But we can only do so if we’re not having to fight each other at the same time. The first thing we must do is bring an end to this conflict.”
“Absolutely. No question about it.” She was having a hard time keeping a straight face. “I’m more than willing to negotiate terms of surrender.”
Lee nodded. “Thank you. I’m pleased to hear this. Our first condition is that the Union Guard must lay down its weapons at once, and—”
“Captain! I must . . . come now, be serious! We’re discussing your surrender, not mine!” Even as she laughed at his expense, Lee watched Baptiste move closer to the Savant. Behind her back, there was a whispered consultation. He tried to remain calm, even though he knew what was being said.
“I’m quite serious,” he continued. “Your forces must surrender at once, beginning with giving up their firearms. If they do so, I promise that no harm will come to any of them, and they’ll be treated fairly by—”
“Enough.” The smile faded from her face as she raised an indulgent hand. “Captain Lee, you’ve got a good sense of humor, but the joke’s gone far enough. Rigil Kent has inflicted some damage upon us, I’ll grant you that, yet the fact remains that your people are outnumbered by at least ten to one. Not only that, but we have more weapons at our disposal than—”
“No, ma’am,” Lee said, “you don’t. Or at least not for very much longer.” And then he turned to Baptiste. “Captain . . . ?”
Hearing his name, he looked away from his private discussion with the Savant. “Matriarch,” he said, “a few minutes ago Captain Lee advised me to order the emergency evacuation of all personnel from Fort Lopez. I’ve done so, but I’m not sure if there’s been enough time to—”
“You’ve . . . what?” Standing up, Hernandez turned to stare at him. “What are you . . . ?”
At that instant, from somewhere not far away, they heard the distant sound of gunfire.
For a few seconds, everyone in the room froze, then one of the soldiers rushed to the door. He flung it open, and now they could hear small-arms fire from not far away, along with shouts from the crowd outside. The Matriarch’s bodyguard immediately moved to protect her, while Baptiste sought cover behind a table.
Only the Savant and Lee remained where they were. The posthuman was almost placid, his only visible reaction a slight lowering of his head within his hood, as if he was listening to distant voices no one else could hear. Then his metallic face turned toward Lee, his ruby eyes seeking his own.
“Very good, sir,” he said. “Very well played.”
1947—MIDLAND CHANNEL
“Hey, you see that?”
Hearing his father’s voice from the bow, Barry Dreyfus looked up from his work. For the past hour or so, he and Ted had been clearing ash from the intake ducts of the skimmer’s turbofans. It was the second time they’d done so; even after they’d left the lagoon and retreated down the channel, ash had continued to fall upon them, clogging the intakes and threatening to overheat the engines, forcing Paul Dwyer to shut them down before they burned out.
Pathetic. Instead of taking out Fort Lopez, they were limping home in a crippled skimmer, their mission a failure. Oh, perhaps the gyros were grounded, yet a few minutes ago they’d spotted a shuttle lifting off from Hammerhead, swiftly rising until it pierced the heavy clouds that shrouded the night sky. At least three more were still on the ground; if the Union could launch one, then they’d soon be able to launch the others. If that happened, the Union would be able to dispatch reinforcements to New Florida.
Then Barry raised his eyes, and
these thoughts were forgotten. Even though the sun had long since gone down, to the west he could see a faint glow within the clouds: a thin halo of light, quickly moving to the east, growing brighter by the moment. At first he thought it might be the shuttle returning to base, but that didn’t make any sense. Why would . . . ?
“Holy . . . !” Ted yelled, and in that instant a miniature comet broke through the overcast, a white-hot fireball that painted the underside of the clouds in shades of scarlet and burnt orange as it streaked across the dark heavens. Thinking that it was headed their way, Barry instinctively ducked, until he realized that it was falling toward . . .
“Get down!”
Jack Dreyfus’s voice was lost in the sound of the sky being ripped open, and then the fist of an angry god came down upon Hammerhead. Barry threw up his hands, yet even with his eyes shut he could see the retinal afterimage of the nuclear blast seared across his plane of vision.
The roar sent him to his knees. He put his head down, feeling the deck rock beneath him. When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the concussion rippling across the channel, a series of sustained thunderclaps that sent up tiny waves across the dark waters. Then he raised his head, and stared in shock at the distant granite bluff. Where Fort Lopez once stood, there was now a fire-drenched mushroom shape rising high into the sky.
“What was . . . ?” His voice was a dry croak, without any expression save bewildered astonishment. “What did . . . I don’t . . .”
“I’m not sure.” Ted’s eyes were wide as his own. “But I’ve got a feeling that was something very precious.”
1948—LIBERTY, NEW FLORIDA
The first shots were already fading in the distance when the advance team reached the boat dock. Jumping from his canoe onto the dock, Carlos crouched low, brought up his rifle, quickly scanning the area through its infrared sights. As before, no soldiers were visible; the dock and the nearby boathouse were deserted.