Chapter 48: A Bull in China
The fleet was small, almost invisible. Three Slinks silently penetrating the night sky over Siberia, then down over Novosibirsk. Tracking all the way, following a signal.
The call had been simple. A request to talk. Not face-to-face but via subspace. Quavoce and the final Mobiliei Agent, talking in the ether.
It was a long and bitter conversation.
Pei Leong-Lam:
‘quavoce, i still do not see what the point of this call is. you are a traitor, pure and simple. certainly you have had some success but only because you managed to hide the resonance dome from us. you cannot think you will be able hide it much longer. eventually i will get to it. just like i will get to your
new moon one,
when it returns.’
Quavoce:
‘pei, my friend …’
Pei:
‘i am not your friend, quavoce.’
Quavoce:
‘no. no, you are not, pei. no one could be my friend who would support such a genocidal mission as yours.’
Pei:
‘oh please, quavoce, save you rhetoric for the plebs. you will find no converts here. these humans and their petty struggles. they have all but ruined this planet. we will be doing Earth a favor by eradicating this infestation.’
Quavoce:
‘¿and we did any better with mobilius, pei? ¿are we such saints that we can pronounce judgment on these people?’
Pei:
‘do not think you can bandy logic here, quavoce. this is not judgment. this is conquest. pure and simple. and it needs no further explanation than that. they have something we need. they will not give it to us and we cannot take it without them dying. so they must die. it is not pretty, i grant you, but nor is it difficult to understand if you are honest with yourself. ¿when did you become so soft?’
In another part of his mind, Quavoce felt another voice. They had been speaking for nearly two hours.
Jennifer Falster at Quavoce:
‘the signal has reached its terminus, sir. it is beijing, as we suspected. the headquarters of the politburo standing committee. he must have taken at least wu jiabao hostage, sir. possibly others.’
Quavoce at Cpt. Falster and Minnie:
‘thank you, jennifer. please deploy your troops in a cordon and stand by. minnie, let neal and banu know, please, if you haven’t already.’
She pinged a confirmation and Quavoce returned to his conversation with Pei.
Quavoce:
‘you call me soft, pei. soft is an interesting word. and one we often misuse. following difficult orders can be hard, but refusing to follow orders you know to be wrong can be harder still.’
Pei:
‘¿and is that how you justify this, quavoce? that you are a big, brave, boy for refusing to follow your orders, for betraying your own people to fight for another.’
Quavoce:
‘no pei. as another, better man once said to me, i do not need to justify standing against genocide, pei, you need to justify committing it. and you have not, pei, not by a long shot. this is a war of greed, not of the mobiliei race as a whole, but of its leaders. and john and i are going to try and stop that, not for the humans, but for the sake of all mobiliei …’
Pei:
‘quavoce, do not pretend that …’
Quavoce:
‘just shut up and listen, pei. you do not have much time left. we know where you are. we are coming for you even now. do not think you can run. you have nowhere to hide now. you are alone. we have advanced troops surrounding your position …’
Pei went to scoff, but Quavoce went on.
Quavoce:
‘they are not there to fight you, pei. just to track you. the fighting will be left to a little girl. a little girl piloting a skalm, a fully functional skalm, inbound on your position as we speak.’
Pei did not let it go through the wires but he flinched at the word. He had seen the blurred images circulating the world’s military intelligence networks. There had been attempts to photograph the shadow as it flew over South America. He had known what it might mean and he had feared it, but he had not believed it. He tried not to even now.
Quavoce:
‘¿not so confident now, pei? yes, my former friend, this is the skalm that killed agent kovalenko. and he was in a fusion fighter of his own. you are not. you are in the politburo standing committee headquarters in beijing’s government district. so i give you this simple ultimatum: surrender now or be obliterated.’
Pei:
‘i care not for this machine body, you fool! and anyway, you would not dare come at me here. you would have to kill half the chinese leadership to do it. are you willing to do that! are you!’
Quavoce:
‘yes, pei. at this point, we are. they have been nothing but a hindrance anyway, and while you cannot know yet, the game has changed. you and Mikhail have forced our hand, pei. you have forced us to break from our political allies and stand alone. whatever you do, the chinese leadership that has sheltered and abetted you will answer for their crimes, we will see to that. so it really just comes down to this: will you send them to jail or to hell; we do not care which.’
Pei looked around. He wanted to believe that they did not have the courage to do it but knew that he would be a fool to assume they were incapable of such things after what he and Mikhail had done to the SpacePort and its defenders. He thought of running, of leaving this place. But as he considered this option, he knew he did not have anywhere left to run. He was the last of his ilk. To think he could make much of a difference if he gave up his position here, at the heart of the most populace country on earth, to think that would be folly.
If he could even escape.
A Skalm was a fearsome thing to have chasing you. A lion hunting a mouse, and even if he could scurry beneath some rock, the troopers Quavoce had told him were out there would eventually find him. No, his only hope lay in staying his execution a while longer. His only hope lay in using his still powerful influence over the Chinese government and military to call what he hoped was a bluff.
The Chinese Politburo Standing Committee Chairman, effectively the most powerful man in China, and in some ways, the world, was weeping at Pei’s side. He was a phenomenally clever man. A man who had achieved his high post through wit, dedication, and hard work, combined with an unholy dedication, to his own success, mostly, but also to the party. His reputation as such had carried him through the last few months. It was a reputation that had kept the rest of the committee loyal despite his devastating foreign policy decisions during that time.
“Chairman,” said Pei out loud to the Chinese man, his voice thick with disdain, “you will alert your military. Your nation is under attack. Your borders and airspace have been violated. You will send notice to the Americans and Europeans that they must withdraw or face nuclear reprisal. You will do it now!”
To emphasize his point, Pei sent a signal to the device by which he controlled the poor man. Embedded in the Chinese leader’s back, a small, clawed machine twitched at its master’s bequest, pulling and tearing at the man’s flesh in the most terrible ways. The chairman cried out as he had so many times as his wounds bled into the dressings that covered them. The only thing that had stopped his permanently open lesions from festering was the synthetic antigen Madeline had created and given the world. An antigen that even now coursed through the powerful politician’s blood keeping his wounds healthy so the torture could continue. The irony was not lost on Pei.
“Yes, Pei. Of course.” said the politician as he moved toward his phone.
Pei:
‘¿did you hear that, quavoce? even now the chinese leader is activating his military and his nuclear arsenal. even
you
would not risk nuclear war. withdraw your troops. call off the skalm. i will not ask again.’
Quavoce did not reply immediately. Far away, Neal sighed. He had hoped to avoid it, but he feared they could not wait any longer. They could not let the Chinese leader complete that call. Ayala, also listening, was not so reluctant.
Ayala:
‘neal, order it. do it now. they have declared war on us and committed an atrocity. they must pay.’
Her anger and thirst for retribution was terrible. They had broken something deep within her when they had killed the man she loved. Her capacity for mercy had died with Barrett. Neal asked once more.
Neal:
‘¿quavoce, can he be turned? ¿is there any hope of a peaceful end to this?’
Quavoce:
‘i cannot be certain of such things, neal. but if you are asking for my opinion, then the answer is no. i fear there is only one solution here.’
Minnie:
There was a pause, and then …
Neal:
‘she is.’
- - -
A Skalm.
A crossed wing built as one whole in order to withstand the forces it was trying to contain. It did not fly into Beijing, it came down on it. Viewing the city from directly above, it descended on a tall, luxurious office building. The center of the single political party in the façade that was the Chinese democratic system.
Banu did not go for precision. The order was simple. The target was somewhere inside that building. Triangulating the chain of subspace relays that had been placed between here and Moscow had led, inexorably, to this place.
Banu could make out in her infinitely precise view of the ground the tiny black specs that were the three Slinks, poised on rooftops around the main government complex. Informed as she was of the locations of the Spezialists Ayala had sent, Banu could also overlay their stealthy presence as they fanned out around her quarry. But they would not be needed.
At the center of that circle was the building. The target was in the building. The target was the building.
0.03
0.02
0.01
She ejected her mighty engines’ power, focusing it all downward into five stellar lances as she descended at stupendous speed toward the ground. The inhabitants of the capital spun in shock as the white beams pierced the edifice, seemingly driven into to it by the star suddenly plummeting from the sky.
Under the merciless beams the huge building instantly began folding in on itself, falling and crumbling into the epicenter of the attack. Inside, the Chinese chairman was only just bringing the headset of his phone to his ear, and would not even know what hit him before he was vaporized. Pei, however, would experience a split second of regret as he realized his gamble had failed. Just a split second before his world turned white, then black.
And in an instant, the last of the Agents were gone, along with the politburo’s headquarters, a hundred lives, and the last semblance of the sanctity of Earth’s once sovereign nations.
At the last possible moment, Banu spun the Skalm on its axis, flipping it in a flash and instantly putting all her might now into her thrusters, halting her tumultuous descent with a scream of her fusion lungs, her white owl’s wings brushing the walls of the barn as she powered her ship backward, up and away once more.
China’s vast and advanced military was not without reaction. A series of missiles had been dispatched to intercept the Skalm and the first were almost upon it now. But the protocols and response times of the massive military machine that had once been home to a hopeful and indeed successful Agent Pei Leong-Lam were simply not designed to account for the severity and speed of the Skalm’s attack, and the missiles, fast as they were, were now but spears thrown after a departing god.
As they came striking in, the Skalm was reversing her fall with a downward thrust that beggared belief. The power of the engine’s mighty downward thrust as the Skalm all but touched the ground turned the rubble of the building she had just destroyed into nothing but a wide smoldering crater, a wound at the very heart of China’s capital and a testament for any and all watching leaders of the world to the folly of standing against Neal’s new nation-state.
With the lair of the last Agent obliterated, the Skalm surged skyward as quickly as it arrived, the swarm of Chinese missiles accelerating up after it in a brash but futile attempt to smite it. Banu did not even bother to swat at the little pests. Her fusion rockets blared like stars as she surged up, up and back out of the atmosphere.
She was returning to orbit. The Skalm was far happier in the vacuum of space anyway. She was returning to her perch, high in the eaves of Earth’s skies, there to patiently wait, ready to descend on any prey foolish enough to cross her or her friends again.
Earth’s mightiest achievements burn. SpacePort One is ra
zed to the ground, reduced to a massive pile of dirt and bone. But it will not be cleared. It will be a foundation. A foundation for a new SpacePort. Built to the same specifications as the first, but defended now with the full merciless might that is TASC. At the head of that defense is soon-to-be General Jack Toranssen, leading TASC’s military forces in Barrett Milton’s stead.
At his side is Ayala. A general she is not. But she is one of Jack and Neal’s greatest weapons, second only to Banu and her Skalm. As Ayala informs her erstwhile comrades within the world’s intelligence organizations of TASC’s full intent and commitment, few doubt her resolve. They will strategize ways to circumvent her and TASC as a whole. They will look for weaknesses, ways to help their respective governments regain control of the rogue group, but for now they will correctly advise that to resist them by force would be tantamount to suicide.
In the wake of the attack in Beijing, the world’s leaders will listen.
But while open acts of aggression will be hard to find, willing allies will be just as few and far between. With the help of Jim Hacker, America will be the first to sign a treaty with Neal, though only out of necessity. Brazil will follow, having seen the full might of the Skalm up close, and as the conquered nations of Russia’s fledgling empire are freed, they will also answer the call in droves.
Europe will eventually follow, reluctantly. First in drabs, then as a whole, refusing to be left out of the flow of technological marvels coming out of Districts Two and Three.
They will bicker. They will complain. But none will be foolish enough to suggest trying to stand against Neal and his growing nation of followers. For individually, the brave and the brilliant will flock to his banner, drawn by curiosity, valor, or greed. They will be vetted. And they will be watched by Minnie and by her more elusive cousin Mynd as the two Artificial Minds help Neal and his team manage the ever-greater enterprise.
Meanwhile, Birgit Hauptman and Rob Cashman will continue to fall away from Earth, entering a wild and doomed orbit of the sun, a new, if temporary celestial body. They will work hard every day. Birgit on her many experiments, Rob on maintaining the station, using the many robotic devices in its complement to mount the lasers it will need both to communicate with Earth and to fend off its fellow stellar debris. They have little hope of getting home on their own, but their part in the coming war is far from over.
Among Neal’s inner circle there will be talk of going after them and maybe they will be able to, one day. But for now the only ships capable of chasing them down are tasked with vastly more important missions.
New Moon One is latching on to Asteroid 1979 va and even now the telescopes of Earth can see the huge rock being saddled and broken. They will start home soon, bringing with them two million tons of iron, oxygen, hydrogen, gold, platinum, and a host of other materials, both exotic and inert.
The other ship that might retrieve the lost Terminus is the Skalm. But it cannot be sent for a wholly different reason. It is Neal’s guarantee. His promise to the world: cross us and suffer. Help us and behold: this is what we can do. We will build Earth such wonders as will defy imagination. And we will defend her against the coming Armada.
But Neal’s confidence is only a show. As he contemplates the marvel that is the Skalm and its nation-killing power, he thinks of the time and investment it took to construct just one of the mighty ships. He thinks of the state of his world, and the toll this war has already taken. Then he looks skyward and contemplates the thousand Skalms that we know are coming for us even now, and as he stares into the blackness he trembles with fear.