Extremis (85 page)

Jon Wismer nodded. “Final orders?”

McGee lifted himself up by one of the many straps securing half of a modular house to its precarious perch atop a flatbed truck. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he scanned the long curve of caravan trucks and abandoned houses that lined the outer edger of the Baldy kill zone. Once home to a bustling commuter nexus, the population of the remaining suburban sprawl had diminished almost as much as Melantho’s own, due to the sharply diminished influx of staples.

Consequently, there hadn’t been many inhabitants left in the suburbs before this very special caravan had arrived eight days ago. Which meant that despite a startling paucity of goods for a market so large, there had nonetheless had been enough genuine goods to go around—until yesterday, when the legitimate caravan organizers left their vehicles and wares behind, convincing as many of the local residents as they could to come along with them. Where are you bound? the residents had asked. Anywhere but here, was the answer. Most understood that it was time to go. Far away.

But as the organizers
made their way to the hills in the west, the many manual laborers who had arrived with this peculiarly overstaffed caravan remained behind. And once their lookouts told them that they were unobserved, these remaining workers began unstacking the heavy, unmarked crates that had been stored far in the back of the trucks. Always under cover, several battalions of weapon-calloused hands began opening those containers, which disgorged military gear of divers types and vintages.

That had been yesterday. Now, as McGee scanned it with binoculars, this outer rim of the Baldy security zone—cluttered with trailers and trucks and abandoned houses and all the detritus of the caravan—was quiet, like the in-facing blade of a scythe held poised and still.

And then, high overhead, a muffled boom. And then another—and then a tremolo of them. McGee’s Marines glanced upward: only Jen craned her neck to search for the source of the sonic booms. A futile task.

McGee looked around his command staff. “That’s it, then. They’re calling down fast movers—transatmospheric craft—from orbit. And they’re not inbound toward us. Meaning they’re part of the strike bound for our bases.”

Matto Maotulu shrugged. “Could be worse, El-Tee. With all that heat going elsewhere, we stand a much better chance here.”

McGee nodded, deciding not to point out that better for them meant worse for everyone back at the bases. Probably much, much worse. “Let’s move to final positions. Kapinski, Kelakos, put out our yellow pennant and then motor on down to Cap’s CP. You’re with him for the main assault. Igor, keep a watch with the binoculars. Let me know when all other CPs are showing their colors in response to ours. Jon, I need a final check on the fixed Baldy weapon sites. Look for anything that suggests they might have altered their traverse arcs.” They nodded and went to perform their duties.

McGee nodded to the rank and files of his fast assault section, who started undraping the armored carapaces that they would soon be wearing. Harry turned to start overseeing their suit-up process, but McGee put his hand on Light Horse Li’s shoulder. “Harold.”

Li started at McGee’s tone and use of his given name. “What is it, Tank?”

McGee looked back at Jen, who saw him, smiled fearfully, and gave a brave but wilted thumb’s up. McGee returned the smile with one of sunny confidence and mimicked her gesture. Then he turned to Li. “I’ve trusted you with my life, Harry. But now I have to trust you with something really important. Stick with Jen. No matter what.”

“Tank, won’t she listen to reason? Does she really have to come on this—?”

“Harry, shut up. And the answers are ‘No, she won’t listen to reason’ and ‘Yes, she does have to come on the assault.’ And I don’t have time for debates. Just tell me—will you stick with her, no matter what?”

Harry looked down and muttered. “Shit, Tank, you know I will.”

McGee patted Li on the shoulder and hoped his small friend would still be alive in thirty minutes.

And then he silently beseeched a god he did not particularly believe in to preserve his son’s life as well.

* * *

Distracted, Lentsul did not detect the
selnarmic
page at first. When he recognized Mretlak’s
selnarm
, he responded, unsheathing his own as he rose to his feet.

Mretlak did not engage in his customary welcoming prattle—which would have been oddly welcome this day. “Lentsul, we have a crisis.”

Lentsul’s mind sharpened, as much because of the dread he felt in Mretlak’s
selnarm
as the words that arrived through it. “What has happened?”

Mretlak communicated in the bulleted form that was the best high-speed transmission mode of
selnarm
. “Nuclear munitions commandeered from orbital reserve bunkers. Transatmospheric attack craft hijacked, now planet-bound. Tomorrow’s Security readiness training exercises for Punt were rescheduled for predawn, today. Munitions load-outs on those air assets were in excess of operating standards. No authorization sought or given for any of these actions. Command overrides sabotaged for all deployed craft and munitions. No replies to attempted
selnarm
and radio contact. All known
Destoshaz’ai
-as-
sulhaji
leaders missing. Dozens of Security and Enforcer personnel found discarnated by weapon fire at the site of each violation.”

Lentsul sent (consternation). “Not a coup—”

“No. They are heading toward the coordinates of the Resistance bases.”

Lentsul saw it now. Iakkut and his Martyrs’ Movement had learned of the plan to protect the humans and were inverting it. In using nuclear weapons against these sites—and their proximal civilian populations—the
Destoshaz
radicals had every reason to suspect that they could trigger an all-out and irremediable war of mutual genocide. Although the byproduct of a monstrous brutality, it was a perversely elegant stratagem.

“Lentsul, I will work to restore our override systems and our internal
selnarm
relays so we can identify, organize, and deploy the Enforcers and those few Security personnel who remain loyal. I am no longer in my quarters but am traveling with twenty of our combat specialists as a mobile headquarters. We are carrying a portable
selnarm
relay pack and will keep moving. I have also summoned the Council to gather in auxiliary meeting chamber E. You are to collect as many military-intelligence section combat effectives as you can within the next five minutes and then move to rendezvous with the Council. You are to protect them until you hear otherwise from me. Trust no units unless I have cleared them.”

“It shall be as you instruct, Mretlak.”

“A final word of caution, Lentsul. I still have no leads on how the Martyrs’ Movement learned of our plan to protect the Resistance, much less the location of their bases. So I am concerned that some of our own people may be cooperating with the radicals. I just wish I knew—”

“Overseer, I think you may consider that mystery solved.”

“What? Why?”

“Because,” sent Lentsul, looking down, “when I came in early today, I found Emz’hem already here. In our office.”

“Emz’hem? What was she doing? Relaying classified information to the radicals?”

“No, Overseer. She was dead.” At his feet, Emz’hem lay in a limp, compactly coiled position, all three eyes open and staring, her neck riven by the distinctive three-talon slash of an expert
skeerba
blow.

“And you think…?”

“I think that she was the leak. And I conjecture that her contact within the Martyr’s Movement decided to silence her. I suspect that her conscience made her arrive early today, possibly to confess her actions to us. If her movements were actively monitored by the radicals, then, arriving here on this day—before dawn—also probably sealed her fate.”

Mretlak’s
selnarm
seemed frozen for a moment before he sent. “My regrets. I know that you and she worked closely.”

“We did.”
Not closely enough for her, however—which may have played a role in this, somehow. She was a fragile creature, particularly for a
Destoshaz
.

“I promise you, Lentsul, we shall find who did this to her, and he shall face the stern wisdom of the Council.”

To which Lentsul replied, “Thank you, Overseer.” But, withheld from his
selnarm
, Lentsul thought:
I already know who is responsible for this. And it is not he who wielded the
skeerba
. Because a year ago,
none
of us were capable of this deed. Killing, yes, but not this skulking, dishonorable assassination. No, the culprit in the murder of Emz’hem is essentially the same one responsible for the death of Heshfet, my entrancing Heshfet.

Humans. They have all but destroyed us. So the sooner we destroy them, the better.

* * *

“
Destoshaz’at?
”

Iakkut made a gesture of permission with the least tentacle of his left cluster. “Inform me.”

“All transatmospheric attack craft confirm rendezvous ETA, and full function of all nuclear warheads and short-range launch buses.”

“Acknowledge receipt of their status. Transmit final launch protocols in the event that forward control and target designation is eliminated.”

“Sending.” A pause. “Overseer Iakkut, do you actually believe the
griarfeksh
could eliminate us? They do not seem to have any weapons capable of intercepting our attack sleds.”

“Communications Prime, just because we have never
seen
the
griarfeksh
use such weapons does not conclusively prove that they do not have such weapons. However”—and Iakkut added a satisfied tinge of (contempt)—“I remain unworried. Profoundly unworried.”

* * *

“Captain Heide?”

Heide stabbed peevishly at the receiver. “Yes, Montaño? What is it now?”

“Sir—they’re coming. The Baldies.”

“Coming? From where? How many?”

“From Melantho and low orbit. Sleds and fast attack craft. Numbers unclear—but lots.”

“Montaño, has there been any signal from Peters or any of the attack force’s cadre?”

“No, sir. And no heliograph relay from the Melantho Baldy-watchers. Sir, I think the timing—their attack coming the same day as ours—must be a fluke.”

“So it seems, but let’s not assume anything, Montaño. Maintain a close watch on all frequencies for any squelch signals. Our attack force may be getting jammed. Either way, it seems that we are going to have visitors.” And suddenly, Heide found a surprising sense of relief wash through him like a purgative. He had lived through weeks of annoyed ambivalence. He had been grateful to be deemed “too essential” to lead the assault on Punt, yet also chagrined at his universally recognized superfluity. But now, despite his best, deeply concealed, and self-denied efforts to avoid war, it had come seeking him. Now there was only one course of action, and—deprived of any chance of fleeing it—Heide felt strangely unburdened. “Mr. Montaño.”

“Sir?”

“Orders. Contact Ensign Cheung. She is to oversee the emergency evacuation of the main base. She is to direct all personnel not tasked for intercept response protocol Bravo to safety using the secret tunnel that follows along our underground river.”

“Yes, sir, the old corporate smuggling tube. Cheung is already on her way there.”

“Good. Tell her I am making her personally responsible for the safety of Alexander Peitchkov-McGee. She is to report her progress to us regularly. Next, relay a similar evacuation order to the regional base in the Charybdis Islands. However, they are to abandon the base without—I repeat
without
—any attempt at intercept. Lastly, you, Mr. Montaño, are to relocate posthaste to our off-site auxiliary ops. Remain online there as long as you can, maintaining communications between all our elements to the best of your ability.”

“Yes, sir. But what about you? Where will you be?”

Heide had already risen and was strapping on his completely pointless sidearm. “I’m going topside, Ensign. To direct our intercept of the Arduan attack. I will buy the base as much time as I can. And Ensign, you are to order one modification to intercept protocol Bravo.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Our defense batteries are not to reserve any primary munitions for a second engagement.”

“Sir—are you ordering me to fire off
all
our Hyper Velocity Missiles?

“Yes, Ensign. Given the composition of the Arduan attack force heading at us, I suspect we’re only going to get one chance to use our HVMs—so we had best use them all now.”

* * *

Alessandro McGee scanned the human edge of the Baldy security zone for the yellow or purple streamers—or tents or pennants or awnings—that would serve as a company’s or a battalion’s all-ready sign. As he watched, the final signal—a faded gold tarp—was unfurled from the side of a truck as an ostensible sunscreen. “We’re good to go all along the line,” McGee called out. “How are you doing, Haika?”

The short, powerful woman looked up at him as she banged her considerable fists at either side of a Marine’s breastplate. “Finishing the last checks on the powered armor now, El-Tee. Seals are tight, servos are good.”

McGee nodded at her and the dozen Marines standing like Impressionist granite statues in their combat armor, then shouted into the window of the half-house perched on the flatbed trailer next to his overwatch perch. “Matto, how’s the PDF system on B mount?”

Matto’s velvety bass came rumbling back in answer. “Tank, the targeting arrays are just not hitting spec. They took too much wear and tear when the mount was used for training, and the civvie electronics we used to refurbish it can’t keep up with the rest of the system.”

“How badly degraded is it?”

“Twenty percent off clock-time, maybe thirty. Won’t know ’til we’re running hot.”

Tank nodded. “Then we have to run with A mount in the lead.”

Danilenko jerked upright from where he was hand-checking a small, tube-launched, rocket-propelled grenade. “Sandro—Lieutenant—this choice is not wise. Miss Peitchkov must be in the second vehicle, where she will be most prot—”

“Igor, I appreciate your concern, but I’m way ahead of you. If we put B mount in the lead, that carrier and all its troops are as good as dead. We need the lead vehicle up to spec so it can burn a clear cone through their anti-armor missiles. That means A mount has got to take the lead. Besides, we can’t risk Jen in any mount with a slow point-defense fire system, because even if it’s following on the flank, it will still be the more vulnerable vehicle of the two. So, whether I like it or not, she’s in the lead with me—in A mount.”