And she was indeed already moving. No more waiting. She unclipped the leashes on her ground troops, filling their minds with estimated origins of the wasps, over a thousand by her and Minnie’s estimate, and she waved these locations in front of her Spezialists like scented rags in front of their noses.
Find.
Kill.
They did not disappoint.
The Russians’ ground forces were not fools. They were already moving, trying to avoid an expected counter. They were launching the wasp missiles from heavy tubes like thick mortars, each trooper carrying three of the heavy munitions each. They had just launched the second of them. They were busy relocating to fire the third and final salvo when Ayala’s hounds descended upon them.
Rending and crushing, the Spezialists did not spare time for niceties. They were only a hundred and twenty, and there were at least two thousand Russian shock troops out there. Ignoring the odds the Spezialists attacked with abandon.
The first Russians to fall literally did not know what hit them. Once each Spezialist spotted an enemy combatant they sprinted at him, firing as they went, head shots, keeping up the fire until they had liquefied their target’s head or removed it. If they got close enough before they felled their opponent then they went to hand-to-hand, choosing the fastest, most brutal attacks possible, hammering their foes to death.
Seconds of untold ruthlessness and then they were gone. Away into the night. Seeking the next victim.
Ayala watched with cold glee. She had trained many of these men and women herself. They were the very best. And they were very, very angry. The Russians’ armor would not save them from her wrath. She would kill them all. For Ben.
- - -
In the air, John and his remaining thirteen StratoJets turned and fled without shame. The wasp cloud responded, switching from their dodge and dive into a headlong chase.
It was a close run. The wasps were markedly smaller and lighter, but the StratoJets were much more powerful. John’s fighters accelerated hard, but they could not stay ahead of the wasps forever, and even if they could, they needed to bring the fight back to the Russians. Ayala’s ground troops would not retain the upper hand for long if Squadron Charlie lost air superiority.
As the chase resolved Minnie and John were calculating their chances and seeking some solace among their diminishing tactical options. As they sorted through the remnants of their plans, they picked at potentials.
Seeing an unclaimed advantage, an unplayed card Minnie reached out to Quavoce, seeking permission.
Minnie at Quavoce:
<¿quavoce, can you see this? it is not good, but it is not unsalvageable. the resolution of this chase need not be violent. at its heart this is target practice. banu would enjoy this, and she would be better even than me at it.>
Quavoce had been focused on his own quieter, but still very active engagement to the north. Now he took what was happening to John’s squadron and could not help but feel for his colleagues.
He had been fired upon too many times by a swarm of wasp missiles, or some variant thereof. It was a horrible, claustrophobic sensation he would not wish on his worst enemy. These were not the wasps of his home. They were just as fast but not nearly as agile. But whatever imperfections in their artificial intellects were limiting their abilities they were still a terrible predator to have chasing you, and were proving more than a match for the StratoJet pilots.
Quavoce knew what strength would come with the ability to think faster than them, and he knew Banu would fair far better than any of the pilots currently fleeing the attack.
For him, the hesitation was a long one, but in reality it did not take longer than a second for him to acquiesce.
Quavoce:
‘minnie. i assume banu is waiting to be asked. you have my permission. engage her. she can at least save one of the pilots in john’s squadron. probably many more.’
Neal at Quavoce:
‘thank you, quavoce.’
Minnie: <
¿banu, my dear, would you like to play?>
She was pure enthusiasm. She knew this was real. She knew it was important. And through the veil of her innocence, she knew nothing of the real horror of what they were involved in, so she leapt upward from her virtual perch in a barn far away, up, through the roof, and out of her owl form, becoming instead one of the StratoJets she had practiced with so many times.
When they politely informed one of John’s terrified pilots that he was to be saved, that he was, at least, not going to have to rely on his skill alone to survive the coming wasp swarm, he did not fight, he fell backward, choosing not to even watch, but to try and come to terms with his building terror in black silence while Banu took his reins from him.
- - -
She watched at first, feeling her plane’s rapid progress through the thick air. It felt slightly more visceral than the simulator. Not much, Minnie was very good at making it feel real. But she knew that this was truly real, and her adrenalin surged accordingly.
And then she looked with some confusion at the coming bank of wasps. They were all travelling at over Mach 5 now, StratoJets and wasps alike, accelerating into the sky, directly away from the swarm, engines firing with all their might, limited only by the now soup-like air that dragged at their bodies.
She watched them. Saw their speed, saw their power, saw their size. She veered her bird infinitesimally, and saw a section of them twitch in response, fast, but not that fast. This was what they were fleeing? She giggled.
Her advantage was slight, but to Banu it was a yawning gap, a chasm, and with a confidence born of skill, lack of fear, and ignorance of the dormant pilot’s life she was gambling with, she peeled away from the squadron. Taking her complement of the swarm with her.
As she arched in her turn, they closed on her, thirsting for her flesh, thinking they were going to get to taste her black skin. They came on, and they came on, so close they could smell her heady scent, the smell of their prey. But she was not fleeing them. She was only teasing them, staying just out of reach. The point where they would connect was as clear as a beacon to her. But it would not be soon enough. And as the seconds passed, ripping at the sky, she was completing a massive circle, closing the loop, and as she did so she was coming at the greater horde from beneath, her portion of wasps closing behind her as she used her powerful wings to thread the greater cloud of missiles still chasing the rest of her brethren.
As she closed she fired on them with glee, their enduring focus on their own targets blinding them to the threat coming at them from below. Their very persistence exposing them to her talons as she sliced them apart, and as she blasted through them, the debris of their rended carcasses began falling from the cloud in droves.
John and Minnie watched her progress. They did not attempt to follow her. They could barely compute the way she was navigating through the swarm, still maintaining her speed to stay ahead of her own pursuers, finding a path that changed every millisecond, threading a line where there was only danger. It was the very impossibility of it that was saving her even from her own pursuers.
And in a flash she was bursting out the other side, spinning and arching as she laughed with joy, her charges trying to follow her, but bursting and dying as they struggled to navigate through their manifold siblings, a wave of destruction flowing in her wake.
- - -
Somewhere, far away, a mind watched the wasps. He saw the lone jet killing them and wondered at the humans’ technological progress. He saw the speed of the jet’s reactions. Far faster than his missiles’ improvised AIs. Faster even than him perhaps. He wondered at humanity’s progress, and then took some solace in the fact that only one of the StratoJets was capable of the feat.
He sent a new directive to his wasp swarm and a moment later they turned as one to chase Banu’s jet, spreading out as they went, starting to form a net to entrap the lone warrior who had just run a ring around and then right through them.
On the ground, Mikhail could feel his shock troops, numerous at first, but now being systematically hunted and killed by a vengeful pack of wolves. He could have them turn and fight. He could try to mass them and defend against the ferocious Spezialists killing them in droves, but all it would do was slow the slaughter, and these lambs had served their purpose. So he sufficed with ordering them to fire their last volley of wasps and then he left them to die in the dark, beneath the burning skies of the Szatmar-Bereg.
John watched the third swarm launch and knew that Banu’s maneuverability had just become moot. The poor pilot she had taken control for was doomed, there could be no doubt of that. At his command Minnie gently pried Banu from the plane’s controls, but he did not awaken its pilot. Instead, John instructed the StratoJet to accelerate with all it had, away from swarm. That man’s only hope lay with his colleagues now. Maybe they could save him before the wasps caught him, but John would not force a man to witness his impending death.
As Banu’s view changed to another of John’s squadron, the young girl pondered the fate of the jet she could now see being chased into the sky. But she did not have much time to think about it. John and Minnie were already banking hard and going after the redoubled swarm, calling to her to join them, and she did, wanting to get back into the fun as soon as possible.
Mikhail watched the four fighters change course as the rest of the squadron moved to return to the fight. He could not know the four were John’s, Banu’s, and Minnie’s two, but he could see the sharpness with which they turned on his swarm. With a sigh, he realized that the real pilot he sought was almost definitely far away, subsuming jets to her command at will. It would be the strategically wise thing to do, and his opponents had proven nothing if not strategically wise. To a point, he thought, with a smile. To a point.
He knew he could keep retargeting the wasps, but in the end they had countered him, and all he could hope for was to take down a few more StratoJets before his most advanced units were finally destroyed.
A furious Russian premier was screaming into a phone in Moscow, cursing the man he knew as Field Commandant Beria and promising lifelong suffering and ignominy for the fatal losses he was hearing about from his ground commanders. The furious Russian premier was demanding that Mikhail send in the Ubitsya fleet. The furious Russian premier was demanding Mikhail reply to his orders.
Well, thought Mikhail with cold calm, the furious Russian premier can go fuck himself. The Russian Army had done everything Mikhail had needed them to. Armed with the Mobiliei technology he had reluctantly given them, they had drawn the StratoJet fleet into a dirty, ugly fight, a fight they would win, but a fight that was thousands of miles from where they were most needed.
And now the Russian Army was dying, along with their Mobiliei armor and any advantage it might give them.
It was perfect.
Far away to the south, the massive and unscathed Ubitsya fleet finally came to life. Mikhail’s pilots focused their engines and lifted as one, rising from amongst the dense mangroves of the broad Indus River Delta, a great horde of black predators rising into the purple predawn sky on blue-white spires of light.
As they broached the canopy, they accelerated, rising as they went, quickly leaving the coast of the now Russian controlled Pakistan behind and surging out over the Arabian Sea. They were not alone. As they rose, they merged smoothly with another fleet of near equal size and capability flying in from the north, from the Hindu Kush, having started their journey from an equally clandestine staging post in Western China much earlier.
The combined flotilla moved off now with purpose. Not far out from the coast of Pakistan, they crossed an invisible line in the sky after which Mikhail knew they were officially closer to Rolas than the TASC StratoJets killing his erstwhile army in Central Europe. As of this moment, he knew there was nothing Neal could do, even if he did receive advanced warning of the real attack. Stealth was no longer a factor. He need not take the longer route around the tip of Africa. He would get to his real target before anything could be done to stop him.
Mikhail smiled as he commanded his two hundred strong Ubitsya armada to accelerate up to full speed. Inside his own unique craft he focused once more and prepared for his attack on SpacePort One. It was time to strike at the heart of Earth’s resistance.
It was time to bring down the elevator.
Chapter 43: Inbound
Neal was inconsolable, h
is fury a living thing within him. Recalling the StratoJets would take too long, and they could not come back yet anyway. They could not just leave Ayala and her troops without air support.
He refused to dignify the calls he was receiving from his NATO colleagues, and they were almost grateful. As news had started to come of the armada hurtling across central Africa their monumental error had become painfully clear. Without exception, the NATO countries of Western Europe were now engaging the full weight of their military into Hungary to support Ayala. They would be in place to engage the Russian Army and Air Force in less than an hour. A multinational fleet of F35s, Typhoons, Rafales, Griffens, and a host of other fighters already inbound, with attack helicopters and ground forces following as fast as they could.
The full weight of NATO was mobilized. The Russian force was doomed, there could be absolutely no doubt about that. With the impending attack on Rolas, Russia had given the Europeans license to all but wipe them out. But even as the Germans, British, and French came in with murder on their minds, even as Ayala’s Spezialists continued to rip a bloody gash across the Hungarian and Ukrainian countryside, it was clear that their real enemy had outmaneuvered them.
Neal stood in his office and screamed at the phone, “Jim, this is not a request, this is a goddamned demand,” he shouted at the White House chief of staff. “If we survive the coming attack, and I am far from sure we are going to, then at the very least we are going to suffer massive, and I mean
massive
casualties. Many of them US sailors and soldiers. We will need reinforcement and support at this position, and we will need it immediately!”
“Neal, I am on your side …” Jim began in reply, but Neal cut him off.
“No, Jim, you are fucking-well-not. Otherwise I would still have the
Reagan
here, and we wouldn’t be looking at the impending fucking destruction of Rolas!”
Jim could not contest it. And he did not run from Neal’s wrath. “You are right, Neal, of course you are. That much is becoming all too clear. Please, believe me when I say I
will
talk to the president. And I know you don’t believe this, but he
does
want to help. You can count on the US to do whatever we can, but you know how serious things are here.”
Neal’s reply was icy, “Jim, I know you don’t believe
this
, but things are going to get a damn site more
serious
in eight years time if we don’t get our fucking act together. So you’ll forgive me if I tell you that I don’t give a damn how things are in the US. How things are in the US is irrelevant. Do you hear me, Jim?
Irrelevant!
”
Jim replied quietly, meekly, “Yes, Neal. So you keep reminding me.”
“And yet still you do not seem to understand.” said Neal
Jim’s voice became less pliant, still not combative, but with as much force as he was want to use, “I
do
understand, Neal. You are not the only person on Earth who is fighting to save it. You forget how much money still flows out of America’s banks into your coffers, Neal. Even as our wells are frankly running dry. You are not alone, but you will be if you do not recognize what allies you still have in the world, and what we are all trying to do for the greater cause.”
Jim went silent as he tried to wrestle his exasperation under control. His emotion over what was clearly about to happen at Rolas, and the verbal abuse he was once more taking at the hands of Neal, was like a rising tide bubbling up around his neck, threatening to overwhelm his famous calm. But his words had managed to penetrate the cracks in Neal’s rage to the more sensible man beneath. Sensible, but still obsessed.
Neal did not respond, but Jim did hear an audible sigh through the line. It was not much, but the change in tone was significant. Jim was not unused to it. He understood Neal more than the other man realized, and was more of an advocate than Neal understood. Behind all the great and not-so-great men Jim had served in his life was a profound but understated dedication. A dedication and a quiet capability. Many mistook his calm for impotent ambition. They were wrong, but Jim did not usually trouble himself with correcting them.
He did now.
“Neal … I love my country … I love it enough to see that it is doomed.” Neal did not expect such openness, or such insight from Jim, and Jim was not done, “I stay here not to serve America, and certainly not to serve the president. I stay here … partly out of patriotism, partly out of habit … but also because I thought you needed me here more than you needed me there.”
Neal was surprised once more. Jim went on, not uncomfortable with the level of candor, but still keen to get through it. This was not diplomacy, this was honesty, and it carried with it a wholly different set of risks.
“I will talk to the president. I will get him to send as many reinforcements to Rolas as is feasible. In the meantime, I want you to promise me you will not call him directly. The fact is I can do more for you if you stay away. At this point your reputation does our cause more damage than good, at least here in the US.”
Neal took a deep breath and nodded, forgetting the two-dimensional nature of the phone call for a moment, then replied aloud, “I suppose that makes sense, Jim.”
He did not thank the man, and Jim did not ask for gratitude.
“I will call when I know more,” Jim said with some finality.
“Good.”
“Good-bye, Neal. And good luck.”
Neal closed the connection, a long, deep breath spreading through his deflated form like a death rattle. But only a moment was allowed to pass before Minnie’s voice entered his mind like a subconscious twitch, pulling him back to the task at hand.
Minnie:
Neal:
‘thank you, minnie.’
It was as much as they could do, Neal knew that, but thanking Minnie for it felt like thanking the executioner for saying they would make it quick. Barrett interjected.
Barrett:
‘¿minnie, what is your comfort level with our force estimates on the incoming force?’
Neal closed his eyes and saw what Barrett was looking at from his command center elsewhere in the concrete mountain that was Rolas. He looked at the forces now converging on Rolas. His: a tiny force of four StratoJets coming from Hungary, moving fast, but hopelessly distant. The enemies’: a cloud of threat coming at them from the east.
How had they managed to build so many of the hypersonic fighters?
Neal set aside the question with physical effort. It was, after all, irrelevant. Instead, he studied the Russian jets, for he did not know that nearly half of them were actually Chinese, and such considerations were, in the end, irrelevant anyway. He looked at them from one of his many satellite Pods now tracking the fleet.
They had heard news of the fleet as a series of complaints echoing throughout the world’s capitals. The flotilla had announced itself to the world by thundering into Somalian airspace, then across south Sudan toward Cameroon. The banana republics had fired in anger at this violation of their airspace and sent indignant calls defending their sovereignty to anyone they thought might be responsible for the huge fleet. They had fired anything and everything they had at the jets, impotently screaming as their primitive arsenal had been rebuffed like so many arrows against the broad flanks of a dreadnaught.
As news had reached Neal and his commanders it had not taken them long to guess who the force really belonged to. They had pondered the lack of tech-ten air units as they engaged the Russians in Hungary. Now they pondered no more.
Minnie:
Neal shook his head. Things had become strange indeed when Madeline had to ask permission to speak to him. But his mind was protected behind the bank of icewalls, filters and AIs that now managed his day. He opened the virtual doors to his sanctum and spoke with his first companion on the long road he found himself on.
Neal:
‘madeline, things are getting interesting here. ¿have you been updated by minnie?’
Madeline:
‘of course, neal.’
A hint of emotion bled through their link to his right brain, anger and indignation at the implication that she should need informing of such monumental events as the impending attack on Rolas.
Neal:
‘sorry, madeline, i forget myself, sometimes. ¿what is it you need?’
Madeline:
‘it’s not what i need, but what
you
need, neal. when you made the decision to send the fleet out yesterday, i retasked the resonance chambers here. i thought i would be replenishing the fleet based on potential losses from the engagement in hungary. anyway, i have three stratojets inbound on your position now, eta sixty minutes, and three more leaving japan as we speak, though i imagine those will be too late to make too much difference.’
Three StratoJets. It wasn’t much, but it was three more than he had. Three against two hundred.
Neal:
‘thank you, madeline, that is some very welcome good news. and sorry for the delay you had getting to me. i am updating my executive ai’s to give you command override, just like ayala, barrett, and the others. you should have had it from the start.’
Far away, Madeline, banished any remaining indignation she might have felt from her mind and focused on what Neal and the rest of her friends at Rolas must be feeling.
Madeline:
‘forget about that, neal. that is less than nothing. neal, my friend, it’s been so long since we brought down the satellites that i had almost forgotten what it feels like to be so vulnerable. you will be ok. we survived the satellites and you will survive this. we are all with you.’
Neal:
‘thank you, madeline. but unfortunately i need to do more than just survive it this time. the spaceport. the elevator. if i could stand in front of it and die to save them i would. my survival means nothing compared to the time and resources we have sunk into this damn island.’
Madeline did not doubt his words. His dedication to the task ahead was without question. To the point of fanaticism even, but what more deserving cause for zealousness was there?
Madeline:
‘i know you would, neal, we all do. but you don’t have to, and you won’t, neal. you have to focus, my friend. i have been looking at these numbers. they aren’t good, but they aren’t without hope either. leave hungary to jack and ayala and get minnie, quavoce, and john’s minds back to rolas. banu’s too, if only so she can defend herself. you have three stratojets coming, give them one each and see if they can’t even the odds a bit.’
Neal nodded, sending his approval back to her as an emotive thank you, while he felt her confidence and support as a warmth in his mind.
Neal:
‘thanks, madeline. good advice. all right, i must go. thank you again.’
Madeline:
‘of course. we are all with you, neal. you are going to be ok.’
He agreed and thanked her again.
Once the connection was broken he sat back.
ok.
He did not want to be ok. He was tired of striving for ok. He wanted to be in control. He wanted to be done with this fucking infighting so he could get on with the real work. He was trying to drag humanity up a technological mountain and all it could do was scream and bicker and kick at his heals all the way like a gaggle of spoiled children.
And now two economic and military giants among those children had, in their ignorance and stupidity, unwittingly conspired with the enemy, and may have doomed them all.
It was too much. It was treason. It was treason of the highest order. Even as Neal checked in with Minnie once more on their preparations he saw that he could no longer sit by and wait for the rest of the world to get Russia and China in line. They had committed the foulest of crimes against humanity. They needed to be punished.
Neal:
‘minnie, patch me through to recon team two in russia. i have a new mission packet for them.’
- - -
Hektor and his team trundled along through the Russian countryside. Hundreds of miles away, the country’s military was being punished with deadly force for pushing the world too far. But here, deep in the heart of the mighty nation, all was quiet, and recon team two passed unnoticed through yet another town as they made their way toward the sprawling capital.
They had been using their now passive subspace tweeter to monitor subspace traffic, and had picked up signs of very real tech-ten capability along the route from the Ukrainian border to Moscow.
Cara drove, her incongruously angelic face combining with her better than average grasp of Russian to provide good cover for the team should they be stopped. They had switched the truck’s plates not far out from the lumber farm they had stolen it from, just in case the Russian police were unusually efficient. Now they moved into the city at a rumbling, agrarian speed that belied the power of their weaponry and training. They moved toward Red Square, monitoring and tracking subspace traffic as they went. They were stalking the subspace network, hunting its source. Identifying the location of the Russian Agent, maybe. They could not know.