Coyote Rising

by Allen Steele

  He reached down to offer Chris a hand, but he was already clambering out of the stern, gun in hand. No time to tie up; they let the canoe drift away as they dashed toward the boathouse. Behind them, more canoes were approaching the dock: the strike force to retake Liberty.

  The boathouse was the same one where he and Chris had built the canoes they’d used to explore the Great Equatorial River. Carlos didn’t give himself a chance to reflect upon that irony as they flattened behind its log walls, taking a moment to assess their situation while they waited for the others to catch up. To the south, they could hear scattered gunfire coming from the direction of Shuttlefield.

  “That’s Blue Company,” Chris whispered. “Clark’s guys shouldn’t have much trouble. A few Guardsmen, some Proctors . . . they’ll go down easy enough.”

  Carlos nodded. He was more concerned about what was happening north of Liberty. They had left the rest of Red Company a half mile upstream, to invade the colony from the opposite direction. With luck, simultaneous incursions from north and south would divert the Union Guard’s attention from the creek, giving his team a chance to infiltrate the town center just a few hundred feet away.

  “You ready to do this?” The hours they’d spent on the river had left him feeling light-headed; he reached down to massage a cramp in his leg.

  “We’ve got a choice?” Chris glanced back at him. “I mean, if you want to take a nap, go ahead, we’ll—”

  “Never mind.” Hearing movement behind them, he looked back and saw shadowed forms advancing toward them, the weathered boards creaking beneath their boots, Bear’s pale blue glow lending a soft luminescence to their faces. Marie was the first to join them, her carbine clasped against her chest. She caught his eye, nodded once. They were all there. Time to move in.

  Carlos raised his hand, silently pointed to either side of the shack, then leveled his palm and lowered it: Half of you go this way, the other half go that way, and stay low. No one had to ask what he meant, or who was going where; they’d rehearsed this phase of the operation many times over the past month, and everyone had memorized Chris’s hand-drawn maps of the colony. While a half dozen Rigil Kent members fell in behind Chris, Marie, and five others followed Carlos.

  A narrow dirt path led them through brush and tall grass until they came up from behind the community hall. By then they could hear gunfire coming from the north as well; Red Company had apparently engaged the Union Guard. Between the grange and the nearest cabin, he spotted Guardsmen emerging from their barracks across Main Street, running toward both Shuttlefield and the north side of Liberty.

  The battle for New Florida had begun. Although he was tempted to join the fight, Carlos focused upon his principal task. Raising his hand, he brought his people to a halt, then crouched low and peered through the sourgrass. Light glowed within the windows of the community hall; apparently someone was inside. Good. The Matriarch might have taken cover within; since his group’s primary objective was capturing her, that left Chris’s team clear to achieve their task of taking down the Union Guard barracks.

  The clatter of gyro rotors. Carlos looked around, saw aircraft lights rising from Shuttlefield. There was a thin streak of fire from the ground, and a half second later the gyro exploded. As it plummeted to the ground, he heard distant voices raised in victory. The gunfire resumed, only more sparsely. Blue Company had taken out a gyro; now the people of Shuttlefield were joining the fight as well, rebelling against the Guardsmen and Proctors who’d been their overlords for so long,

  Staying as low as possible, Carlos moved his people closer to the hall. They were less than forty feet from the entrance when a pair of soldiers came around the front of the building. Although people were fighting on either side of them, they were sticking close to the hall. Someone important was inside; he had little doubt who it was.

  Carlos turned around, only to find Marie crouched next to him. He pointed toward the soldiers, and she nodded; she knew what to do. Raising herself up on one knee, she propped her rifle against her shoulder, took careful aim at the Guardsmen. One shot, and one of them went down; the other barely noticed that his comrade had been hit before the next shot took him down as well. Carlos tried not to notice the grin on his sister’s face. It had to be done, and she was an incredible sharpshooter; despite that, he felt horror at the pleasure she took from killing people. When this was over . . .

  Worry about that later. Carlos jumped up, tore out of the high grass, raced toward the front steps of the hall. He was less than a dozen feet away when the door slammed open and another soldier emerged onto the porch. Seeing Carlos, he whipped up his rifle and fired. Bullets zinged past Carlos’s left ear even as he crouched, aimed, fired. The Guardsman fell, his body keeping the door ajar.

  Bolting up the stairs, Carlos dashed inside with his rifle raised. The light dazzled him, causing him to blink, and the warmth of the room was suffocating after the cool of the evening, yet now he saw several figures standing only a few feet away.

  A Savant, cloaked in black, standing silently in the background. A Union Astronautica officer half-hidden behind an overturned table. A middle-aged woman in a frayed purple robe, her right hand outstretched, holding a pistol on . . .

  “Don’t shoot!” Lee snapped.

  Carlos’s expression, so determined just an instant before, changed to one of bewilderment. It was obvious that Lee was the last person he expected to see there. Yet his rifle remained fixed upon the Matriarch, his index finger poised on the trigger.

  “What . . . how did you . . . ?” Carlos began. Behind him, several other members of Rigil Kent were rushing into the hall. Seeing Lee, they came to a stop, yet no one lowered their weapons.

  “I’ll tell you later.” Lee carefully kept his voice even. “Right now, I want you and everyone else to just calm down.” That wouldn’t be easy—outside the building, they could hear the sounds of gunfire—but the last thing he wanted was to have the negotiations end in a shoot-out. He looked past Carlos to the two men standing closest to the door. “Go out and stand watch. Make sure no one comes in.”

  They hesitated. “Do it,” Carlos said, and they reluctantly went back the way they had come, leaving the door open. “Captain—”

  “Not now.” Lee returned his attention to Luisa Hernandez. Her pistol, which she had produced the moment her bodyguard had dashed outside, was still aimed straight at him. At that range, she’d couldn’t miss. “I believe we were discussing terms of surrender.”

  “You had this planned all along.” Her voice trembled with barely suppressed rage. “Under flag of truce, you came here to negotiate peace, knowing that your people were preparing to attack—”

  “I didn’t plan to be here until just a few hours ago. Carlos wasn’t aware of what I was doing, were you, Carlos?” The younger man shook his head, but she ignored him. “There’s still a way to resolve this peacefully, Matriarch. There’s no reason why more of your people should die . . . and believe me, your troops are outnumbered.”

  The left corner of her mouth flickered in a sardonic smile. “For now,” she said, her gun still leveled upon him, “but not much longer. Oh, you may be able to take control, but I can have reinforcements from Fort Lopez here within an hour.”

  Lee looked over at Baptiste. He had risen from behind the table he’d kicked over, and he stood silently nearby, a witness to the endgame. “Captain . . . ?”

  “Matriarch”—he cleared his throat—“Ma’am, it’s my sad duty to report that Fort Lopez has been destroyed. Captain Lee informed me of this just before we arrived.”

  Her eyes widened. “How . . . you can’t know this! Why would you trust his word—”

  “It’s true.” For the first time, Savant Hull spoke up. “While you’ve been . . . um, engaged in negotiations . . . I accessed the Spirit. Sixteen minutes ago, a force as yet unknown struck Hammerhead, obliterating our base there—”

  “That force was the Alabama,” Lee interrupted. “Before I left, I preset its guidanc
e system for a deorbit trajectory that would bring it down on Fort Lopez. I gambled that, even if most of the forward section disintegrated during atmospheric entry, the engine’s fusion reactor would survive long enough to reach the ground.”

  “He didn’t do it without fair warning.” Baptiste stepped around the table. “After he arrived here, he informed me of what he’d done. That gave me a chance to contact Fort Lopez and order an emergency evacuation of all troops. I did so before we—”

  “Thank you, Captain. Well done.” Hernandez looked at Hull again. “And were the troops evacuated?”

  “One shuttle was able to lift off before the base was destroyed. From what I’ve been able to gather, it carried eighty-eight survivors. They’re now en route to the Spirit.”

  Lee winced as he heard this. He glanced at Baptiste. “My apologies, Captain. I’d hoped you might be able to rescue more.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Hernandez said coldly. “Captain Baptiste, make contact with the shuttle, tell it to change course. It’s to land here, with the objective of—”

  “No, ma’am. I refuse.”

  She gaped at him in astonishment. “What did you say?”

  Baptiste assumed a formal military position: feet spread apart, hands locked together behind his back, back rigid and chin uplifted. “It’s my judgment,” he continued, staring straight ahead, “that the objectives of this mission . . . that is, to establish a self-sustaining colony upon this world . . . have been neglected by a personal desire for—”

  “Get those soldiers on the ground!”

  “It’s over, Matriarch.” Lee spoke softly, yet his quiet voice carried more force than her outraged shout. “Captain Baptiste knows the truth, and I suspect the Savant does as well. You can’t conquer a place whose people don’t want to be conquered. The most you can do is occupy it for a short time. Ancient Rome learned this, and so did Nazi Germany and the United Republic . . . those who want to be free will remain free, at any cost, even their own lives.”

  All this time, Hernandez had held the pistol upon him. Suddenly she seemed to shrink in upon herself, like a woman who had once worn pride as her armor and suddenly found it replaced by mere flesh. The pistol wavered, shook within her grasp; Lee found himself remembering the last time he’d stared down a gun barrel, many years ago aboard the Alabama.

  “What is it that you want?” she asked, almost in a whisper.

  “Removal of all Union Guard troops from Coyote. Relinquishment of all territorial claims by the Western Hemisphere Union. Return of the Spirit to Earth, along with anyone who wishes to go back . . .”

  “Of course.” Her hand dropped, as if tired of holding the gun for so long. Her eyes were dull, registering hopeless defeat. “It’s all yours. You win.”

  Lee fell silent. All the years of exile, all the years of revolution, had come to this moment: a quiet surrender, in a place he’d once helped build. His namesake had surrendered inside a courthouse in Appomattox, with his defeated troops gathered just outside; this evening, with the last few shots of battle dying off in the distance, his own war was drawing to a close.

  Turning away from the Matriarch, he found Carlos waiting nearby. To his relief, the younger man had lowered his rifle. That was a good start. “Tell your people to cease—”

  “Robert!”

  Gunshots from behind him, then something slammed into his back: three bullets that punched through his spine, his lungs, his heart. His mind barely had time to register the pain before his muscles lost control and he pitched forward, his hands grasping at the unexpected wetness at his chest. He hit the floor facefirst, barely able to think, unable to move.

  Everything came to him as a hollow roar of sensation—gunshots, voices, hands grasping at him. He fell over on his back, saw Carlos staring down at him even as his vision began to form a lightless tunnel. He heard something pounding, at first with loud persistence, and then much more slowly. Carlos was saying something to him—Captain, can you hear me?—but he could barely comprehend the meaning of the words.

  Beneath the pain there was a warm inviting pillow. He felt himself falling into it. Yet there was one last thing he had to say before he rested . . .

  He spoke, hoping that Carlos heard him. Then darkness closed in upon him.

  2614—SHUTTLEFIELD, NEW FLORIDA

  Within the stark glare of the Union shuttle’s landing lights, a long row of bodies lay upon the ground, each wrapped in a black plastic bag. A pair of Guardsmen picked up their fallen comrades one at a time, and carried them up the ramp, where other soldiers secured them to the deck with cargo nets. Twenty-two bodies in all, including that of the Matriarch; Carlos couldn’t tell which was hers, and he was reluctant to ask.

  “I’m sorry it had to end like this,” he said quietly, careful not to raise his voice lest it break the silence. “I know that sounds awful, but if there could have been any other way . . .”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” Baptiste stood next to him, watching the dead being taken away. The night was cold, and his hands were shoved in the pockets of the military-issue parka someone had given him. “In fact, I prefer that you didn’t. These men died in the line of duty. It’s not for you to say whether it was right or wrong.”

  Carlos didn’t know what to say to this. He’d killed one of the men himself; the fact that he’d done so to liberate his home mattered very little at that moment. Sometime the next day, he’d have to bury some of his own: twelve Rigil Kent members, along with seven colonists from Shuttlefield and Liberty who’d given up their lives in the name of freedom.

  And one more, whose death weighed upon him most of all.

  “But you’re right.” Baptiste looked down at the ground. “There could . . . there should have been another way. This world belongs to you, and we had no right to take it from you.” He looked up at Carlos. “If there’s anyone who owes an apology . . .”

  “Thank you, but . . . maybe you’re right. Anything you’d say now would only be an insult.”

  Baptiste said nothing, but simply nodded before turning his face away. Within the ring of armed men surrounding the landing field, Carlos watched Union Guard soldiers marching aboard other shuttles. With their guns taken away, they represented the defeated remnant of the force that had once held New Florida. Among them were several dozen civilians: a handful of Union loyalists, but mainly those colonists who’d simply decided that they’d had enough of Coyote. More would join them before the last shuttle lifted off early the next morning, yet Baptiste had assured him that the Spirit had enough biostasis cells to accommodate everyone who wanted to return to Earth.

  “Are there going to be more?” Carlos asked. “I mean, will the Union send more ships out here?”

  “I don’t know.” Baptiste shrugged. “My ship was the last one in the fleet . . . and believe me, they were expensive to build. But that was almost fifty years ago, and I don’t know what’s happened since then. For all I know, there could be more on the way . . . or none at all.”

  “But Savant Hull will be awake during the journey, right?” Carlos had seen him board the shuttle just a few minutes ago. Baptiste nodded. “Then tell him to send a message to any ships they see coming this way. Tell them that . . .”

  He took a deep breath. “Tell them that this is our home. We want freedom, and we’ll fight to keep it that way. Tell them, Captain.”

  Baptiste didn’t respond. Once more, his eyes returned to the bodies of the fallen Guardsmen. “I believe you,” he said at last, his voice low, “and I’ll pass the word along, but tell me one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you going to do now?” Baptiste turned to look him in the eye. “You’ve won your freedom. So what are you going to do with it?”

  Carlos met his gaze without blinking. “We’ll do what we’ve always done best. We’ll survive.”

  For a long while, the two men regarded one another in silence. Then Baptiste offered his hand, and Carlos took it. “Good luck to you,” B
aptiste said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  Then he turned away, joining the procession of men, both living and dead, going aboard the shuttle that would take them back to the Spirit and, eventually, back to Earth. In the days to come, Carlos would regret never having thanked him for the choice he’d made, or for failing to realize that his last words echoed something that had been said to Lee a long time ago.

  After Baptiste disappeared within the craft, Carlos watched the last few Union Guard soldiers march up the ramp. It slowly rose upward, then the hatch closed behind it. He stepped back as the ascent jets whined to life. A ragged cheer rose from the crowd as the shuttle slowly lifted off, and a few people fired their guns into the air. All he felt was exhaustion, as if the weight of a world had settled upon his shoulders.

  Coyote was free. Yet Robert Lee’s last words haunted him, echoing through his mind: It’s yours . . . it’s yours . . . it’s yours . . .

  Part 8

  HOME OF THE BRAVE

  The monster rose from the East Channel on a clear and sunny afternoon in late summer, a day so warm and fresh that it was as if the world had not skipped a season and a retrograde spring had finally come. The monster wasn’t aware of these changes; for ten months he had known only the darkness and cold of the silent depths that had been his prison. At long last he’d had finally escaped, and now he emerged to see the sky again.

  The creature that shambled out of the water was human-shaped and had a human mind, yet he wasn’t human. His ceramic-alloy body, once a burnished shade of chrome silver, was now dull and corroded; weeds clung to the creaking joints of his skeletal limbs, and dark mud caked the clawlike feet that sank deep into the coarse gravel of the river shore. His right leg, broken last autumn by gunfire at close range, had been braced with a piece of sunken wood, lashed against it with lengths of tightly coiled weed; even then, he was only able to stand upright with the assistance of a waterlogged tree branch he’d fashioned into a makeshift crutch. Within his skull-like head, only his right eye emitted a ruby glow; his left one had been shattered when he’d attempted to scale an underwater cliff, only to become half-blind when he slid back down and his face struck a sharp rock.