Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (34 page)

“Damn, there are women and kids in that group. Are you sure we want to do this?” Jones said.

“We’ve got our orders,” the Sergeant said. “Inflict enough casualties to convince them of their sins.”

He chuckled at Winchell’s dark humor.
The Army of the Holy Right. Sins.
What a hoot that was.

The command came over the radio and the gun began to fire, another round cycling through the autoloader before the ringing of the first thunderous round had died down. Two, three, four. With each successive shot it got harder to focus his eyes on the scope screen, the bone-numbing concussion shaking his nervous system to near collapse. Ten rounds, and then pause. Assess the target and then re-aim.

“Holy crap Sarge, they’re still coming,” he said, screaming to be heard over the ringing in his head. He could see piles of twisted bodies dangling in impossible positions over the smoldering rims of craters, hanging out of the windows of flipped trucks and cars. Human hamburger. Yet behind them another wave charged forward.

Dancing through the smoke there was something else. A helicopter, and a whole set of small planes. Not as big as a Predator, or any of the other drones the military used, but like a swarm of angry gnats they roared forward, passing over the bodies and flying toward their position.

“We’ve got incoming drones,” he yelled again. “Jesus Christ, they’re attacking us from the air!”

“Roger that. We’ve got several dozen small aircraft tracking inbound,” the Unit Commander said. “They’re very small, so they can’t be packing too much of a punch. Stand your ground.”

Jones sat there staring at the small planes, more worried than he thought he should be. They were just RC planes after all.

“Ten seconds till we start firing,” Winchell said. “Get me a new resolution.”

“Sure thing, Sarge,” he said, turning his attention back to the computer and ignoring the inbound drones. He punched in the figures and listened as the barrel cranked up a few degrees. A slight pinging sound rang behind him, and he glanced up at the still open hatch. The approaching hoard was too far away to worry about buttoning up. They couldn’t even hit the tank with a high-power rifle at this range. Shaking his head he turned back to the screen and suddenly couldn’t focus his eyes. A burning red film covered them when he blinked. He rubbed the back of a hand over his face and glanced in shock at the bright red blood. He couldn’t see it clearly, but it was there. He felt it like slime. He tried to speak but nothing came out except a splattering of blood. It ran down the screen in front of him and he blinked again, this time his vision was completely blocked by the red goo that was oozing from his eyelids. He touched the seat controls and fell forward as it rocked back.

He couldn’t pull air into his lungs. Trying to push himself up and out of the tank, he managed to get as far as the turret hatch by feel. He pulled himself out onto the top, and digging at his eyes with the edge of his uniform sleeve, looked through the splotchiness of his vision and saw the next tank over. A thin red line ran across its surface where its crewman had slipped down to the ground. He lay next to the tread bleeding.

He coughed up what felt like a lungful of blood and watching it drip slowly from his mouth, then closed his eyes and collapsed forward off the edge of the tank and into oblivion.

***

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho:

Becki and Lin-Tzu sat together along one side of the long table. Neither of them felt comfortable talking, even though they both held substantial positions of authority within the Chang Er hierarchy. The incident with the transport ship was almost two months old before they became aware of the US observation post wedged between the boulders of the ejecta blanket twenty kilometers beyond the rim of the crater.

It wasn’t much of a facility, nothing more than a small habitat, concealed in a permanent shadow out on the open surface. In fact, if it hadn’t been for a mishap with a lander that had to make an aborted approach very near the outpost, they may never have seen it. Now they were aware it was there, they knew their security had been challenged. For more than a week the Prefect’s Governing Committee had debated over what to do about the intrusion, incessantly arguing to a stalemate as to the appropriate response. Prefect Czao’s patience had long since stretched to a brittle edge, and he sat listening to his advisors, shaking his head as they went on about the political ramifications of any action they could take. It was clear politics had infected their minds and stolen their ability to think.

He looked at General Yao, his eyes pleading for her to take a position and end the stalemate. Finally, when he could take no more of their pointlessness, he dismissed them once again, admonishing them to “not come back until you have some plan for me.” He held up his hand, telling the two women to wait until the others were gone.

“Why is it you offer no suggestions?” he said, looking at Lin-Tzu once the door was closed and they were alone. “Surely you have some opinion on the matter.”

“I do,” she said. “But it is my belief that any actions taken by the military have to be based on the civilian interests of the government. Our precarious position with regards to the Americans is a result of my predecessor exerting too much influence over affairs of state. I do not wish to repeat his mistake. The People’s Army serves the government, it should not dictate to it.”

“That is a very unusual position for a military leader to take,” he said, shocked by her statement, not because she’d made it so much as because it made sense.

“You must remember, I did not aspire to this position, I inherited it. I wish to do my job well, but I do not wish to do my job at the expense of my humanity,” she explained. “If you seek my opinion, I will give it to you, personally. I do not want my words to have undue influence on others, nor do I want to take responsibility for how they might misinterpret what I say.” She looked at Becki and added in English, “It is better to remain silent and be believed to be a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

“An old American saying,” she explained, translating it for her husband.

“Very well, I can respect that,” he said. “So now that the others have gone, you can express yourself freely. I do want to hear your opinion.”

She glanced at Becki, who nodded for her to go ahead. She knew her friend could tell the Prefect’s mood as only a wife could. She drew in a breath and considered what to say. Finally, after several seconds she said, “I believe this is not a military situation. To handle it as one would only serve to increase the tension between our two colonies. I think we need to establish a diplomatic dialog. Tell the United State we are aware of their outpost, and ask them to remove it.”

“And if they do not?” he asked, leaning back and steepling his fingers in front of his face.

“We give them a timeframe, and if they fail to comply, we use nonmilitary options to render it ineffective,” she said.

“Non-military options?” he said. “What does that mean?”

“Your wife and I have studied the last twenty months of the US interactions with their rivals, trying to gain a deeper understanding of the modern American political psyche,” she explained. “During that period, the Americans have tried to assume an assertive posture with everyone who challenges them. In almost all cases they have been successful in controlling the situation, with the most notable exception being in their dealings with Stormhaven.”

“I am familiar with Stormhaven,” he said. “Why are they the exception?”

“Because they refused to meet the US on a field of their choosing. They asserted control over their interactions with the US because they wrote their own rules of engagement,” Becki said. “The Americans call it getting ‘outside the box.’ Colton Taylor refused to let himself be contained. If we adopt a similar strategy, we could gain a similar advantage.”

“I am not sure I understand how you mean to do that,” he said.

“If we open unofficial diplomatic channels, we can find out what they are thinking,” Becki said. “I am sure this offer will come as a surprise to them, especially if we suggest including the other colonies in the process. As of late, our government has pursued a strategy of isolation. If we step outside that policy, we may achieve the high ground.”

He nodded. “Perhaps that is a prudent approach,” he said. “If we do this unofficially for now, then I do not need to inform anyone on Earth. But understand, we are taking a personal risk if anyone finds out and reports our actions before they prove to be effective.”

“I can handle it immediately,” Becki said, smiling. “Keep the Council arguing until we get back.”

“That will most assuredly happen with no action on my part,” he said.

***

Chapter Twenty-Two:

Overtures and Undertones

Stormhaven:

“Mica, are you still online?” Cole asked. He was sitting on the rock ledge that hid the gravity laser emplacement on the west side of the community. He’d been sitting there for several hours, watching the refugee camp that had grown in the narrow valley to the west. It had snowed during the night, and the morning sun was just starting to melt away the thin white coating to reveal the frozen mud beneath.

“I am still sixty percent operational,” Mica said. “Many of my external links are not functional, but should be restored prior to the relocation of my Core Array.”

“Do you have any external optical or RF monitoring capability?” he asked.

“Negative,” she said. “I determined they would be less critical at this point, and should be rerouted first. In the last weeks before the impact, I anticipate I am likely to be needed to help defend the community.”

“OK,” he sighed. “Can you have Tom join me here at the west laser post? I want to get his opinion on something.”

“He is on his way now,” Mica said, after a short pause.

“How about the Defnet? Can you still hack their systems?” he asked, looking for some way she could provide a little more information on what he thought he was seeing.

“I do have access, but there are no active satellites overhead,” she said. “Several of them have been pulled offline for relocation. The
Lynx
is currently assigned to retrieve these satellites.”

“What’s up?” Tom asked, wheeling up on a small scooter.

“Take a look over there at the far end of the camp,” he pointed out across the open ground, and handed Tom his digital binoculars. “What do you think?”

“I see a lot of tents,” Tom said, shaking his head. “A couple trucks, a semi-trailer, and a news uplink van.” He tried to hand the binoculars back to Cole, shrugging.

“Do those look like refugees to you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

“Don’t they seem pretty organized?” Cole gave him a,
what’s the matter are you blind?
look, so Tom put the glasses back to his face and studied the camp more closely.

“Yeah, maybe so. They’ve got a mess tent set up I guess, and there look to be several people giving orders on where to set up more tents,” he said.

“Now, look over the ridge just to the right. See the tops of a couple buses barely visible over the hilltop?”

Tom nodded. “It does look like those might be buses,” he said, shifting his attention back to look at the semi-trailer and the news van.

“I think I recognize one of the men over there,” he said, after several seconds. “It looks like that televangelist the government’s hunting. What was his name?”

“Nathaniel Sommerset,” Cole said. “The Army of the Holy Right has arrived.”

***

Osaka, Japan:

Hiroko Tamami sat on the floor in her parents’ home, trying to understand their decision to stay. She’d pleaded with them to come to Unity with her. After two days she had given up. It was a crushing realization that she could provide them a future because of her reinstated position at JAXA, but they wanted no part of it. They truly weren’t that old. They still had fifty years of life left in them, even if they were to stay here. On the moon they weren’t half-way through their lives.

Antu reduced their earthly life expectancy to five weeks. Second only to the Western United States, Japan was going to be one of the most severely affected places in the world. There would be few survivors. Scientists were saying the tidal waves alone would carry half-way up the side of Mount Fuji. A harbor city like Osaka would cease to exist in an instant. She couldn’t even get them to move to a safer location, like Australia.

She’d spent the evening presenting her arguments for the last time, and after she’d run out of words, her mother had simply smiled and said, “Our decision was made long ago. A life among the stars is for the young at heart. We have no place there.”

“But you do have a place there,” she said. “It is not only for the young. It is for all of us.”

“Enough, Hiroko,” her father said, standing and taking his wife’s hand. “We will discuss this no more.”

“But—“ she started to protest.

“Hiroko, we understand that you offer us this chance to go with you out of love,” her mother had said. “Please know we give back our places not out of love for you alone, but for all of humanity. Give them to someone who needs to go.” She kissed her daughter on the head and left, following her father from the room.