by M. R. Forbes
“Mommy’s got to fix a reactor,” she said. “Which means you’re going to spend the afternoon with Deputy Latos. You like Nora, don’t you?”
Hallia looked back at her with big eyes without making a sound. She was so much like Hayden. So serious a lot of the time, observing everything and taking in every detail. Only once she was satisfied did she burst out into a big smile and laugh.
Natalia went to the front door of the apartment and pulled it open. She was surprised to find Deputy Latos down the hallway and coming her way. The deputy’s expression made her wonder if she should be excited or terrified.
“Nora,” Natalia said. “What’s going on?”
“The Governor sent me to find you,” Deputy Latos replied. “We received an emergency beacon from the Centurion base.”
“Emergency?”
Natalia remembered the message they had received a few days earlier. It was the reason most of the deputies on the EEZ had been called back to the city. Somebody had destroyed the Centurion’s monitoring satellites and possibly their interstellar transport in a confusing act of unexpected aggression. Coupled with the loss of the Singapore and both Bennett and Hayden’s disappearance, it was one of the reasons she hadn’t been able to sleep.
It was one thing if Bennett’s hunt for the Proxima fugitive had cost Hayden his life. It was something else if that same threat intended to harm their child.
“Was there anything through the network?”
“Negative. But Engineer Li pinged the northern terminal and it timed out.”
A chill ran down Natalia’s back. If the Centurion’s terminal was offline, the odds were that someone had either cut the underground lines connecting the two computers, which she doubted.
Or they had destroyed the network at the other end.
“I need you to take Hallia,” Natalia said. “I’ll go and talk to Malcolm.”
“That’s why I’m here. The Governor asked me to bring her to the bunker, just in case. He doesn’t want you distracted while you help him figure out what’s happening.”
“I don’t know how much I can do.”
“At the very least, you can call back the Goliaths.”
“Pozz that.” She shifted her grip on Hallia, holding her out in front of her. “I have to go to work, sweetie. Nora’s going to take you down to play with some of the other kids.”
Hallia stared back at her with the same serious look. Only she didn’t break into a smile this time. Natalia swore her daughter knew something was wrong.
Deputy Latos held out her arms, and Natalia passed Hallia over. Hallia made a few sounds like she was considering crying again before settling.
“You know the bunker’s the safest place in the city,” Deputy Latos said. “I’ll be down there with her.”
“I’m not worried about her. I’m worried about everyone. The Centurion base had a Shield on site.”
“A Shield?”
“It makes a Butcher look like an antiquated piece of garbage. If the attackers managed to take it out…” She shook her head. “Either they have a dropship of their own, or they’re the answer to what happened to the Singapore. Nothing short of a plasma cannon could take down a Shield.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Latos said.
“Me neither. Come on.”
The two women hustled back to the building’s lifts. Natalia hit the controls, calling for one cab to go up and another to go down.
The bunker was part of an old transport system sitting beneath the city, converted over the last few months into a panic space mainly for women and children. It was fifty meters below ground, reinforced with thick concrete and heavy iron doors. Primitive in regards to Proxima technology, and even in comparison to the United States Space Force tech by the end of the war. Natalia liked to think that made it more effective and more resilient to brute force. It was the best protection she could offer Hallia, and despite her youth, Deputy Latos was one of Hayden’s most experienced and trusted people.
The lift doors opened for the cab going down. Natalia felt a pang of fear at losing sight of Hallia, but she pushed it aside, leaning over and kissing her daughter on the head. “Take care of Nora for me, okay?” Hallia looked at her, seeming to nod.
“She’ll be fine,” Latos said. “We’ll all be fine.”
“I know,” Natalia said.
Deputy Latos stepped into the cab. “Wave bye-bye to Mommy,” she prompted Hallia.
Hallia held out her tiny hand. Natalia mimicked the motion as the doors closed. Then she drew in a deep breath, trying hard to calm her nerves.
We’ll all be fine.
She wished she could convince herself to believe it.
Chapter 35
The lift doors opened, depositing Natalia on the top floor of the United Western Front’s Central Government. It sounded impressive, but in truth it wasn’t much more than an open floor cluttered with desks and tables and old tablets and computers that had been scavenged from anywhere they could get them Most had been inoperable but had been returned to working order by her team of engineers.
Dozens of people were in the room engaged in various activities. The day-to-day operations of the United Western Front were fairly mundane. Reports from the different territories came in through a network of short-range radio stations that passed the data on to the next, where it was reviewed by a clerk assigned to the region. The clerk would help collate whatever actionable items came in and record the non-actionable items before passing them on to the Governor. Once a day, the entire government would meet in the center of the room and go over the collated data, deciding how best to distribute the UWF’s resources to keep all the cogs operating as smoothly as possible.
It was by no means an efficient process, but without a better means to communicate, it was the best they could manage with their limited resources. And it had been working so far. When the organization became too much for a single clerk to handle, they found someone else in the population who knew how to read and write and trained them in the role. The residents of Sanisco were happy to have a meaningful position, not only because it granted them a higher distribution of the money they had only recently started printing, but because they wanted to be part of rebuilding a civilized society.
“Hey, Natalia,” one of the clerks said, noticing her entry. “The Governor’s expecting you.” She pointed to the back of the room near a long row of windows. One of them had been shattered not too long ago and hastily repaired to keep the elements out. Malcolm had decided to put his desk there as a symbol of the strength of their new union.
Natalia walked briskly over to Malcolm's desk. It was drowning in a sea of handwritten papers and various size and shape tablets which had manually constructed notes saved to them. Engineering was working on getting the devices networked so they could transfer data from one to another and completely negate the use of paper, which was already hard to come by. It was a challenge without the infrastructure in which they had been designed to operate.
“Natalia,” he said, looking up as she approached. He raised his right hand in greeting. It was a slightly battered replacement that had belonged to Hayden before he received the upgraded Centurion hands.
“Governor,” Natalia said. “Deputy Latos told me there’s trouble.”
“It certainly seems that way.” He rubbed his short beard contemplatively for a moment. “I’m of a mind to believe that whoever is responsible for the original attack on the Centurions showed up to finish the job.”
“As much as I hate to say it, that’s a reasonable assumption.”
“I’m also of a mind to believe that if they know about the Centurion base, then they know about us.I expect they’ll be showing up on our doorstep next.”
“Another reasonable assumption, Governor.”
He stood up, putting his hands on the desk. “So what are we going to do about it?”
“The Centurion base had a Shield,” Natalia said. “If they were able to destroy
it, they may be better armed than we’re equipped to handle.”
“What about the Goliaths?”
“They can’t stand against a plasma cannon fired from three kilometers up. We’d be calling them in to die.”
“So you don’t think we should utilize them?”
“Not in this case.”
“We don’t have much of a defense.”
“We brought back a large number of assets from the EEZ. Everything they could spare. We knew this might happen.”
“But why is it happening?” Malcolm said, his voice rising. “Proxima Command is supposed to be the only entity with starships. They’re supposed to be helping us, not attacking us.”
“I don’t know,” Natalia replied. “If their base is offline, obviously they were about as prepared as we are. Our strength is in our knowledge of the city. We start getting the people underground, and we use the tunnels to move around. We spread out so that no matter which direction the enemy comes from we can cover every side. We’ve got two hundred able-bodied fighters here. A dropship can hold fifty soldiers at most. If we’re smart and we stay clear of the plasma cannons on board the dropships the odds will be in our favor.”
Malcolm stared at her in silence for a few seconds. Then he smiled. “You sound just like Hayden.”
“Good. Somebody here has to sound like him. How long ago did you receive the beacon alert?”
“About an hour.”
Natalia’s whole body froze, her heart almost instantly clearing her throat. “What?”
“Probably an hour,” Malcolm repeated. “Why?”
“Do you have any idea how long it takes a Centurion dropship to cover the distance from there to here? Why the fuck didn’t you call for me sooner?”
“We were working to assess the situation. Don’t take that tone with me, Nat.”
“Assess? How?”
“We were trying to reach CSFNW, through the terminal and then by responding to the beacon.”
“Did you say anything to the acting sheriff?”
“No. I wanted confirmation that the beacon wasn’t a false alarm. We don’t need to go scaring everyone in the city unnecessarily. These people have been through enough. Hell, I’ve been through enough.”
“We need to get everyone out of here. We need to get into the tunnels and the garages to hide. We have no idea what may be coming, and I’d rather have them scared than dead.”
“Natalia, let’s not get overly emotional here. That isn’t your call to make.” He reached for a phone despite his statement, picking it up. “Sheriff Kin, this is Governor Malcolm. I need you to start organizing the deputies. Get them armed and spread out in the city. Yes, all of them. We have to get the word to the population to head for the nearest shelter. That’s right. No, not trife. Soldiers of some kind, we don’t really know. All we know is that they may have destroyed the Centurion base north of here. Yes, I’m serious. Do it. Now!”
He dropped the receiver, staring silently at Natalia for a few seconds. Then he brought his human hand to his mouth, using his fingers to whistle sharply.
“Attention!” he shouted.
The room fell silent in an instant, all of the activity coming to a sudden stop. The clerks turned to look at him.
“We need to evacuate the building,” Malcolm said. “Stay calm and organized. Grab your files and bring them with you. Take the lift to sublevel two, and then into the transport tunnels to the bunker. Deputies Latos and Miller will meet you there.”
The clerks started moving again, following the Governor’s orders. His calm kept them calm, and they worked to collect the files that helped the UWF stay organized.
“Please, Malcolm, we need to hurry,” Natalia implored. “An hour is more than enough time for a dropship...” She fell silent, her mouth gaping open as a dark shape dropped from the clouds less than a kilometer away.
They were too late.
Malcolm noticed her expression and started to turn to see what she was looking at through the window.
Natalia saw the red flare from the side of the vessel before he did. “Run!” she shouted, whirling around, fleeing only two steps before a blinding white light surrounded her. The plasma bolt slammed through the window vaporizing the Governor where he stood.
The heat and force of the blast blew Natalia off her feet.
She landed ten meters away and rolled to a stop against a clerk’s desk. She hurt everywhere, but there was no time to worry about that now. The clerks were screaming and rushing for the lift, desperate to escape. She pushed herself up, shouting to them. “Not that way! Take the stairs!”
She jumped up, glancing over her shoulder as she broke for the stairs situated around the back side of the lift. She could see the dropship now through the windows lining the top flight of stairs. It was closing on the tower. How had they known where the Governor was? She supposed it made sense they came here first as this was the only intact skyscraper in Sanisco, the only one with people more than a few meters off the ground.
It didn’t really matter now. With the Governor dead, it was up to her to see everyone to safety.
Chapter 36
Natalia kept shouting to the other people on the floor, screaming for them to head to the stairs. A few of the clerks were already there, pushing past the door and starting the descent. Natalia froze when she reached the corner, stopping to look back one last time. There was a small balcony at the edge of the floor and sliding glass door leading out to it. The spacecraft was positioned above it, its ramp nearly down. A robot was standing at the end of it. She had never seen one like it before. It was huge with a humanoid metal body that looked to be thickly armored. It carried a frighteningly large rifle gripped in its massive hands.
Was that monster how they destroyed the Shield?
“Natalia, come on,” one of the clerks said, getting her attention.
She glanced around. All her people had managed to clear the floor. All except for Malcolm. She turned her head in time to see the robot leap from the ship to the platform. Then she went around the corner and started down the stairwell.
“Hurry!” Natalia shouted to the others. The front line was already three floors down and dropping as fast as they could. She stopped to pull the stairwell door closed behind her, wishing she had some way to lock it. She could hear the robot stomping across the floor toward the lift and boots rushing in her direction. She began to descend, trailing the last of the clerks.
She went down one floor, stopping when she heard rending metal from above – the lift shaft doors being torn open. She realized she had to get word down to Sheriff Kin and her engineers to activate the Butcher. They could have it in the lobby by the time the clerks reached the ground floor.
She got out of the stairwell at the same time she heard the door just above her slam open. This floor was composed of offices with separate walls and doors. Ancient equipment was scattered across the segmented spaces. Some of them had recently been searched through for parts, but most of it was still intact, the height of the floor and the many years when the lifts didn’t have power keeping it secure. Few thieves were inclined to climb forty or more floors to score this kind of equipment. She knew there was a phone in the office on the other side of the building, having almost taken it a couple of weeks earlier. She could use it now to contact the Sheriff’s Office.
Natalia was almost halfway across the long hallway leading away from the stairs when she heard the click of the doorjamb behind her. Someone was on this floor besides her. She threw herself through the open doorway of the first door she reached and fell inside.
Had they seen her?
Her heart was racing, her body shaking. She couldn’t help thinking about leaving Hallia orphaned. She had to fight to keep herself calm.
Gunfire sounded in the distance, muffled and ominous. There was only one thing the intruders could be shooting at — the clerks still negotiating the stairs. If she had stayed with them she’d almost certainly be dead.
W
hat did these assholes want? They had attacked the Centurions, and now they were here. Did it have anything to do with the fugitive? Had Nathan Stacker turned out to be much better connected and much more dangerous than Bennett had believed? Fuck Bennett.
Natalia crawled across the floor of the small office on her hands and knees. She could hear boots on the tile floor now – a man by his heavy tread – headed directly down the hallway, coming straight for her. She got up and made for the one desk in the room, looking for anything on it she could use as a weapon. There was nothing, but the desk had a drawer in the center. It was already halfway open. She ran around the desk and pulled the drawer the rest of the way open, looking for anything she could use to defend herself. There was a letter opener shaped like a miniature sword. She slid her finger lightly across the blade. Her heart sank. It was about as sharp as a butter knife. But it was better than nothing. She dropped down behind the desk and crawled under it clutching the letter opener.
The boots reached the open doorway and paused. Natalia was sure the attacker couldn’t see her. That didn’t mean he didn’t know she was there.
Her body continued shaking while she remained crouched under the desk, waiting for the person connected to the boots to move, either away from the room or into it. The tension was killing her. She wanted to rise and ask him to make up his fucking mind before she went insane. Then the soldier finally moved along the corridor, away from her.
Natalia let go of the breath she had been holding, her body slumping in relief. She slid out from behind the desk, getting to her feet, and approached the hallway.
She slowly poked her head out into the corridor, looking in the direction the man in the boots had gone. A hand reached out from the other side of the doorway and latched onto her shoulder, pulling her into the corridor and slamming her against the wall.
“Got you.”
Her attacker was a woman in Space Force combat armor and a tactical helmet. Small and thin, with a sharp voice, she put a gun to Natalia’s chest and held her in place.