Coyote Rising (55 page)

1947—M
IDLAND
C
HANNEL

“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—L
IBERTY
, N
EW
F
LORIDA

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.

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 guidance 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—”