by David Ryker
Quinn frowned. He wanted to be furious—part of him was with Maggott, ready to leap forward, grab all four of them and throw them out the airship’s cargo door—but part of him could understand. Every one of them had come from the slums and risked everything for years in the war, taking on missions that no one else would accept, all in the hopes of getting their just reward for surviving until the end. Instead, Han and the others thought they’d been left on the sidelines by their comrades—worse, their leader—when Quinn and the others had accepted the mission to Astana. A mission that was, of course, offered to them by Morley Drake.
“Jesus,” Bishop sighed. “It really was the perfect set-up, wasn’t it? We were framed by the best.”
“It’s ironic,” said Quinn. “We were betrayed by Drake, the same man you all saw as your benefactor. It sounds like something out of an old public archives movie.”
Han fixed her eyes on his. “You have to understand, we were devastated,” she said. “While you were setting up the mission, we were all sitting on our hands wondering what was going on. Then everything came out, and suddenly I’m wondering if the four of us would end up facing charges ourselves. I was sure the absolute best we could hope for would be to not lose our pensions.” She ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. “And then instead, we were offered the chance to not only muster out but to climb the ladder. Pretty soon we were given top-secret security clearance and we started doing work for Zero, and Drake sent government clients our way after he was elected. We all had apartments on mid-level floors in the Manhattan Tower, steady work, a future. We had the kind of lives we’d always dreamed about.”
“And ye never thought to question it?” asked Maggott, still scowling. “Never wondered about the friends ye’d sent to wither away in space?”
“Easy there, Mags,” Gomez warned. “We gave Peg a job after your trial so she could get out of the slums in Glasgow and be near people she knew. We’ve taken care of her. That should count for something.”
“You know what else would have counted for something?” asked Bishop. “Believing that the people you shared a trench with for five years weren’t capable of treason.”
The conversation kept going, but Quinn had tuned it out, and he could tell that Han had as well. She had been his third in command in the war, every bit as capable as Geordie, and in some cases more useful because she had a killer instinct that Bishop lacked. Quinn had trusted her completely. He could tell by the look in her eyes that she was feeling every ounce of shame that he would have felt if their situations had been reversed. Could he honestly say he wouldn’t have done the exact same thing?
And in a world where an alien enemy had the Earth in its sights, did any of it really matter?
“All right,” he said, interrupting a conversation between Gomez and Bishop that was threatening to boil over. “We’re not getting anywhere with this. We need to work together on this mission, so we’re going to leave this where it is and get on with what we need to do right now.”
Gomez glared at him. “You don’t give the orders here, Quinn.”
“Like fuck I don’t, Marine!” Quinn barked, hot anger suddenly flashing through him. “I’m running this show as of right now, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door!” He pointed to the hatch.
Gomez moved to stand and Quinn felt his own fists curl, but Han stopped her comrade with a raised hand.
“Stand down,” she said to Gomez. “That’s an order. Quinn is in command; Zero said we’re here to provide support. If you don’t like it, you should disembark in New York.” She levelled a stony glare at all of her men. “Then be prepared to divest yourself of all ownership in Precision Security, because you’re fired. Is that clear?”
The men glowered but none answered. Quinn was glad—he wasn’t in the mood for a fight. At least, not right now. He couldn’t say what might happen after the mission.
“That goes for you three as well,” said Quinn, eying Ulysses in particular. “You’re free now, and I’m not going to hold you to this mission. I’ve asked far too much of you already.”
Bishop grinned coldly and looked at Gomez as he answered. “You know damn well I’m in. Oorah.”
“Oorah,” echoed Maggott. “What else’ve we got tae do?”
“Yippee ki yay, motherfucker,” said Ulysses. “I don’t talk that Jarhead shit.”
Quinn looked back at Han with a smug grin. His men had said all that was needed to say. She went back to not meeting his gaze.
The rest of the flight passed in near-silence before they landed somewhere in Death Valley. All Quinn could see from above was dun-colored scrub and hardpan, but once they were close and the rotors were kicking up dust, he saw a shimmering in the air that indicated a holographic camouflage unit.
They left the airship and stepped into the blast furnace heat of the desert. It felt oddly comforting to Quinn, as if it could somehow burn away the memories of New Alcatraz. Han deactivated the hologram and a Raft appeared out of nowhere in front of them.
“One of our modified jobs?” Quinn asked.
Han nodded. “Zero said it wasn’t easy getting Drake to agree to it, but once he heard it had something to do with torturing you people, he gave in.”
“Of course,” Quinn muttered.
They boarded through the cargo bay door and Gomez headed for the cockpit while the others took their places in the jump seats. Quinn wondered if Gomez was just trying to avoid any more confrontation, since the Raft’s autopilot could easily make the journey to New York without him touching a single control.
The engines fired up as the door rose on its hydraulics behind them. The Jarheads shared a look, and Quinn thought they were likely all be feeling the same thing as him: as ridiculous as it might sound, this place was more of a home to them than anywhere else.
Han, Shane and Elliot joined Gomez in the cockpit for several minutes before returning to the cargo hold. Han took the seat next to Quinn.
“We’re all in, too,” she said. “So we’re not stopping in New York. We’ve got all our supplies on board here, so we can go straight to our destination.”
“Which is?”
“Moscow.” She glanced at the display on her wrist. “We’ll take her up to orbit and go full-out in stealth, which should put us there in approximately two hours.”
“Russia?” Bishop’s brows went up. “Are you serious? How the hell are we going to pull that off?”
“Are ye daft?” Maggott protested. “The city’s been a no-fly zone since before the war!”
“Whut’s so tough ‘bout Moscow?” asked Ulysses.
Gomez flashed a snide grin. “You don’t know about Moscow?”
“I didn’t go t’school, chuckles,” Ulysses said evenly. “I was too busy learnin’ how to kill assholes who thought they was smarter’n me.”
“The skies are filled with mini-drones that constantly monitor the city,” said Han, glaring a warning to Gomez. “By which I mean they pretty much monitor the city’s three Towers. No one cares about the slums.”
Quinn turned to Ulysses. “Russia is the seat of the Allied States faction, but it’s been in rough shape for decades. They were hardest hit by the Trade Wars in the ‘70s.”
“Yeah, I read that.” He looked at Gomez. “I actually can read. There was sump’n like a hundred million people killed, right?”
Quinn nodded. “Another two hundred million died in the Trilateral War, which left them with half the population they had in the ‘50s. But the government decided to turn Moscow into a virtual fortress after the Trade Wars so that, not matter what, no invading army could reach the heart of the faction. The rest of the country just sort of fell apart after that, and those who survived either moved to Moscow or emigrated to Eastern Europe or South America.”
“Wait,” said Ulysses. “How the hell can a country in that kinda shape run a faction in a world war?”
“Russia is incredibly wealthy,” said Han. “Palladium mines in Siberia supplied much of
the world’s fusion fuel for years, until their competitors started exploring space. Plus, they could rely on millions of troops from the slums of Brazil, Argentina, Chile… their allies provided the manpower, Russia provided the money.”
“All of which brings us back to the initial question,” said Bishop. “Is Zero out of his mind?”
“He came up with a plan for us to infiltrate first the city,” she said. “Once we’re on the ground, there’s an asset who can get us inside the Tower we need to infiltrate.”
“Let’s assume we make it that far,” said Quinn. “What are we extracting?”
“Human collateral. That’s all I’m authorized to say.”
“I’m not going in without knowing what we’re looking for,” said Quinn. “Zero can kiss my ass.”
Han shrugged. “He didn’t even tell us. All we know is that the target is in cryosleep somewhere in the Tower apartments of one Oleg Johnson, and that we have to get that person out.”
“Whoa!” Ulysses hooted. “Wait a minute, wait a minute—you mean the Oleg Johnson?”
“Ye know him?” Maggott asked.
“You kiddin’ me? Guy’s a legend in my circles. His ma was a Russian refugee sent to the relocation camps in Philly before the Trade Wars. There was a huge famine or sump’n in Russia at the time. Anyway, she was hotter’n a fusion core and caught the eye of a rich old American dude. She was a trophy wife fer a few years, had a son, then when the old man croaked, the kid inherited it all. Went back to Russia and started an empire.”
“A criminal empire,” Han pointed out.
“There some other kind?” asked Ulysses. “All I know is if we’re goin’ up against Oleg, we need to be on our toes. That dude is hardcore, even by Saints standards.”
Quinn nodded. “Good to know.”
Outside the porthole, he caught sight of the Earth below as they navigated through air traffic on their way up to orbit. A few moments later, the porthole went white, indicating that Gomez had activated the cloaking device Schuster had developed and they were now effectively invisible. Gomez have to stay at the controls for the duration of the flight to make sure they avoided any oncoming traffic that couldn’t see them and inadvertently got in their flight path.
“Why didn’t Zero just do this himself?” asked Bishop. “The guy can turn into anyone; couldn’t he just impersonate Oleg long enough to get in, get his target and get out?”
Han shook her head. “It’s not just the skies that are wired in Moscow. The Towers have security sensors that can detect any sort of implants as soon as you cross the threshold, even ones as sophisticated as Zero’s.”
“Which brings me back to my initial question,” said Quinn. “How the hell are we going to get into the city without being seen? Even invisible, the Raft can’t land in the Moscow the way we did in Rome when we first got back to Earth—the population is too densely packed. We’d literally be landing on top of someone or something. That’s not going to go unnoticed.”
“Correct,” Han said with a nod. “And we can’t approach from outside the city because there’s a perimeter fence manned by thousands of armed border patrol agents.”
“So we cannae fly in,” said Maggott. “An’ we cannae walk in. What’s left?”
“Have you ever heard of HALO jumping?” asked Han.
Quinn nodded. “High altitude, low open. Paratroopers used to use it decades ago to get inside enemy lines without being detected—they’d fly well above enemy radar, drop like a stone for 30,000 feet and then deploy their chute once they were below radar, at around a thousand feet. It was dangerous, but effective.”
“Except radar was replaced by more sophisticated sensors about fifty years ago,” said Bishop. “And Moscow has some of the best equipment on the planet. There’s no way we could open a chute without being detected.”
“A chute, no,” said Han. “It’s too wide, and the sudden deceleration would definitely set off the alarms. But a human body on its own is small enough to get through the web.”
Ulysses cocked an eyebrow. “Am ah missin’ sump’n here? How the hell we supposed t’land without parachutes?”
“Glider packs are out,” said Quinn. “They’d be picked up even faster than chutes. So what’s left?”
“These,” said Shane, holding up a pair of boots.
“Oh, well, that explains it,” said Bishop. “For a second I was worried you didn’t have a plan. Now I can see we have footwear, so…”
“Stow it, Geordie.” Quinn peered at the boots. The soles appeared to be metal, and about three inches thick. “How are these going to get us in?”
“Courtesy of Dev Schuster,” said Shane. “Or the tech he developed, anyway.”
“They were built by the scientists who were working with Schuster on the Rafts,” said Han. “Zero gave them the job to distract them from the fact that they weren’t arrested for aiding and abetting the theft of government ships.”
Quinn snorted a chuckle, remembering how the four brainiacs had used CR game weapons to help them escape. “Bet Drake didn’t see that coming when he made his plan. He expected them to be in their labs when we stole the Rafts.”
“Exactly. It all worked out for Zero in the end because they produced these.” Han took the boots from Shane. “The soles contain miniature versions of the tech that the Rafts use to essentially vent inertia.”
Quinn nodded, fascinated, but Ulysses was frowning.
“All right, y’got me,” he said. “I got no idea whut the hell yer talkin’ about.”
“Yuir nae the only one, boyo,” said Maggott. “How’s that supposed to help?”
“Basically, it redirects the force of the landing,” said Han. “If you were to land feet-first from a 30,000-foot drop, the force of the impact would turn you into pudding. But by sending the inertia—the force of the fall—on a horizontal plane outward, you lessen the effect of the impact on your body.”
Maggott scratched his head. “Ye mean like when we landed in San Antonio without the thrusters? FUBAR dropped light as a feather, even without any power.”
“Exactly like that,” said Quinn. He had to admit, it was genius; tech like that could have a thousand uses. “As long as you land feet-first, of course. If you don’t, well…” He shrugged.
“Sweet Jeebus,” Ulysses breathed.
“So you’ve tested them at 30,000 feet?” asked Bishop.
“Yes,” said Han. “They work.”
Quinn cocked an eyebrow. “You tested them on humans?”
“Uh, no, not exactly. Just on human-sized weights.”
“Great,” said Bishop. “I always wanted to be a test pilot. Soak up my remains in a towel and have them sent to Ellie when it’s over, will you?”
“It will work,” Han said. “It has to.”
Quinn sat back in his jump seat and let out a sigh. They were used to living on a wing and a prayer, so why should now be any different? As always, they had no choice—their only option was to go along and pray. Like Bishop had said in the mess hall, he was getting mighty tired of it, but until their circumstances changed, they were going to keep doing whatever they had to.
“All right,” he said. “What’s the plan?”
“Five of us drop,” she said. “You and me, plus three more. Obviously, Maggott is out.”
“Oi!” Maggott protested.
“She’s right, big guy,” said Quinn. “You’re just too much of a target.” He looked to the others. “You two up for this?”
Bishop shrugged. “I’m like you, Lee, I haven’t jumped out of an airship since basic training, and even then it was only a handful of times. But it’s the only plan we’ve got.”
“Count me in,” said Ulysses. “Chance to talk to Oleg Johnson’s worth the risk o’ splattin’ all over the sidewalk.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Han said sternly. “The mission is to get in, extract our man—assuming it’s a man—and get the hell back out. Maggott, you’ll stay with Shane and Elliot here in the
Raft. Once we’re inside the Tower, you’ll take the Raft to Seoul.”
“Seoul?” Quinn frowned. This was getting more complicated by the second. “How the hell are we supposed to get out with the package if the Raft is gone?”
“We can’t fly out,” she said. “We have to get out without being seen.”
“How do we do that? The perimeter guards stop people from leaving, too. They’ll immediately flag five people who have no record of entering the city, especially if they’re bringing along a frozen friend.”
Han gave him a small grin. “I thought that would have been obvious,” she said. “The vactrain runs under Moscow. All we have to do is get to the entrance and we’ll be on our way to Astana. We change trains there, then it’s on to Seoul. Once we arrive there, we’re back in the Raft. Next stop, San Francisco.”
Quinn exchanged a look with Bishop and Maggott. The thought of revisiting the site of the incident that sent them to prison was obviously weighing as heavily on them as it was him. A train in a vacuum tunnel that could fly faster than an airship, all while underground, was obviously their best bet, but it just didn’t sit well.
“It’s the only way?” Bishop asked.
“It’s not just the only way, it’s the best one.” Han looked at her wrist display. “We can get in on foot without arousing any suspicion. And at two thousand kilometers an hour, the train will put us in Astana in about ninety minutes. Another two-and-a-half hours and we’re in Seoul.”
Yeah, Quinn thought, remembering the botched firefight in Astana that ended with Zero stealing Frank King away from them. Except we don’t exactly have a great record getting our packages to Seoul.
But they’d come this far, and it was time to get to work. He felt a momentary flash of jealousy as he thought of Schuster and his cushy cell in New Alcatraz. Then he remembered that at least they were free, and he was sure Dev would rather have been with them.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road. What’s the first action once we land in Moscow?”
Han smiled as she reached into a foot locker on the floor in front of her. From it, she pulled a pile of clothes that looked to Quinn like some kind of formalwear.