General Hill spoke a word into the intercommunications system, then leaned into our conversation and spoke softly. “Mr. Andropov, our pilot informs me that we are about to enter the atmosphere.”
The explorer did not inject itself into the atmosphere with the grace of my shuttle, but it broke through more smoothly than a transport would have. The sky outside our ship was dark with clouds as fine as lace.
“Before you experiment with military options, you’d better evacuate the planet,” Hughes reminded Andropov. “We all agreed that the first thing we need to do is to evacuate Olympus Kri.”
He looked so old, a caved-in, wilted wax model of the one-time political heavyweight known as Gordon Hughes.
Andropov drummed the fingers of his right hand along the top of his armrest, then asked, “Where do you suggest we take them, Gordon?”
“Take them to Earth,” Hughes said. “God knows there’s enough room for them there.”
“What are we going to do with the population of Terraneau?” Andropov asked.
“As I understand it, there are only five million people left on Terraneau,” Hughes said. “There’s plenty of room for them on Earth.”
“And Providence Kri? What about the people on Providence Kri?”
“Take them all to Earth.”
It sounded like the bastards expected to evacuate our whole damned empire.
The lower we descended, the more grim the atmosphere became. I could see the planet below through a hazy sky that was black, but not pitch-black. It was a dirty, rusty black.
The thing that surprised me most was the snow. A fresh layer of fluffy gray snow covered the burned-out countryside, blanketing forests in which the burned-out hulls of pine trees pointed into the sky, as straight and naked as sewing needles.
There could be no question that this was New Copenhagen, I’d fought in these woods under very different conditions. I recognized the terrain. I recognized the roll of the forest floor, even spotted clearings in which our Marines and soldiers had ambushed the enemy.
Clearings? The entire specking forest was a goddamned clearing. I could not see so much as a hint of a leaf or a pine needle.
“What kind of weapon does something like this?” I asked.
“Sweetwater thinks the Avatari ignited the atmosphere,” said General Hill.
“Ignited the atmosphere?” I asked. “What the hell does that mean?” I was angry. I was irritable. I was scared.
No one responded. They didn’t know.
“Have you debriefed the survivors?” I asked.
Hughes answered in a hushed voice. “That is the point, General. There are no survivors.”
When I looked back out the window, we were flying above Valhalla, the capital city of New Copenhagen. I had seen this city destroyed; but in the three years since I left, the residents had undoubtedly rebuilt it.
“It looks a lot better now than it did when the Avatari left the first time,” Nickel Hill said.
“Igniting the atmosphere” had toppled some buildings and left others standing. I saw no logic in the buildings that remained and the ones that fell. We flew over tall buildings that stood and piles of rubble that might have once been great skyscrapers. On one side of the street a three-story building might stand untouched, while across the street, a building of seemingly similar size lay in ruins.
Our pilot took us lower and lower until the roofs of the tallest buildings passed only a few feet below our wings. I saw melted roadways below us and streetlamps with posts that had wilted like old sticks of celery. We flew over an intersection in which cars had sunk axle deep into the road below them. The cars were all the same color now, the dull nickel gray of burned metal.
“We landed drones down there to gather data,” Hill said. He always struck me as a man with a love of gadgets and an appreciation for science. “The radiation levels are normal. The carbon monoxide is off the charts, but that’s predictable. Whatever did this, it killed off the plant life. It burned everything. We haven’t found a patch of ground that has not been burned.”
Flying low to the ground, we passed a tall skyscraper that reached well above us. The glass in some of its windows had melted and run down the side of the building like wax from a candle. The entire building was covered with soot.
“I can tell you what Sweetwater says happened here if you’re interested,” General Hill said. Of all the generals stationed on New Copenhagen, George Hill was the only one who took Sweetwater seriously. “Sweetwater doesn’t think we fought the Avatari Army that first time out. He thinks they sent their exterminators, maybe only their janitorial squad. He says they sent their C-team to sweep us cockroaches out of the way. That’s what we fought.
“He thinks they’re sending their army this time. Last time they wanted us to leave. That was before we took our planets back. Now they’re sending their army.”
I turned from Hill and stared out the window. Below us was a park in which a blackened and mostly melted slide stood on a glittering mound that looked like it was made of glass. Scanning the grounds, I did not see so much as a single blade of grass.
We left the city, flying no more than fifty feet above a residential suburb. Some of the homes below us had exploded. For the most part, the neighborhood looked like it could be washed clean with a hose, just spray the soot away and move right in.
“I don’t want to fight them again,” Hill admitted. “I think we got lucky last time. I think we got lucky, and they didn’t take us seriously, and they were fighting with one arm tied behind their backs, and they still almost won.”
“We don’t have any other options,” Andropov said. “Even if we move everyone to Earth, how long do you think it will be before they come kill us there?”
The pilot banked and turned so that he could take us back for another pass across Valhalla. As he did, I saw a park with a large reflection pool. The pool was empty, but the ground reflected our lights in smeared streaks, as if it were made of crudely made glass.
“Did you ever hear the story of the gossamer moth?” Hughes asked. He stared out the window, his eyes drinking in the devastation. Did he see New Copenhagen or Olympus Kri below?
“I used to tell my children a bedtime story about a moth that lived near an air force base. It watched the fighters as they flew in and out of the base. It watched them dogfight and studied their maneuvers. One night a lizard crawled up into its tree, and the moth attacked the lizard, using the tactics it had learned by watching the fighters; but it forgot that it was just a moth, and the lizard ate it.
“I don’t know what the Avatari are like; but I think to them, we’re just another moth.”
We passed over a section of street with fancy-looking storefronts and outdoor restaurants, the kind of place that gets crowded on weekends. I looked for bodies or signs of life and saw nothing. No clothes. No toys. No shoes or hats.
Anyone stuck down there must have been cremated,
I thought; but what I said was, “Just a million moths.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Apparently Freeman wasn’t the only person with a direct line to important ghosts. He did not attend the negotiation with the Unified Authority, but a member of the U.A. Academy of Science with a direct link to Sweetwater and Breeze did. He was the liaison. He was the buffer. His job was to keep Sweetwater and Breeze informed while weeding out any information that might tip them off to their virtual reality.
We sat in the conference room on the
Kamehameha
. Andropov, Hughes, Hill, and the scientist sat on one side of the table. I sat across from them. I was alone. Warshaw sat at the head of the table, running the meeting. Andropov, representing the highest power in the Unified Authority, should have conducted; but Warshaw would not allow it. We were in Enlisted Man’s space on an Enlisted Man’s ship. He insisted on calling the shots.
Warshaw sat at the head of the table, making no effort to hide his disdain for everyone else in the room, including me. Methodically flexing his muscles in an effort to make himself more menacing, he sneered, “You give the orders in your corner of the galaxy, and I give the orders around here.”
His eyes still locked on Andropov, he asked, “Harris, are you sure that was New Copenhagen they showed you?”
“Yes,” I said, letting my annoyance show. We all knew Warshaw had big muscles, big specking deal. His physique wasn’t intimidating anybody in the room.
“How do you know?” he asked me.
“I recognized it,” I said.
“I thought it’s all burned up,” Warshaw said. “How did you recognize it?”
I saw no point answering; he would not accept anything I said. He wanted to make a point.
“Admiral, we have to get moving,” Hughes said climbing partway out of his chair. “We need to begin the evacuation immediately. There may not be enough time as it is.”
Appearing to weigh his options, Warshaw rubbed his jaw and sat in silence. His forearms bulged, then his biceps, then the muscles in his neck. The way he worked his muscles was impressive, but it was also pathetic.
Hughes dropped back in his chair and threw his hands up in frustration. “Look, we’ll fly you to New Copenhagen, we’ll fly a team of clone scientists to take soil samples, we’ll do whatever it takes to make you believe us; but we need to start the evacuation. Every second could mean lives lost.”
Warshaw turned to face him, smiled, and said, “I’m not convinced.”
He was playing with us, with all of us. He wanted to show everyone who was in control.
Accustomed to working with self-important officers and politicians, the academy scientist tried to get the meeting back on track. “Admiral, we can provide scientific findings. We’ve sent drones to run tests on several of your planets.”
“My planets?” Warshaw asked. “What planets are my planets?”
“The planets you stole from the Unified Authority,” Andropov said.
“Oh, stole them. So you were trespassing on some of the planets we stole. Which ones?” Warshaw asked.
“Olympus Kri, St. Augustine, Terraneau . . .” the academy man began.
“Yeah? And how did you run tests on those planets?” Warshaw asked.
“They sent in Double Ys,” I said.
“What’s that?” Hughes asked.
“Those were the clone assassins Andropov and his pals sent to kill me and my officers,” Warshaw said.
Andropov flushed with anger. Hill looked nervous as well. “I didn’t know about that,” said Hughes.
“You didn’t know about the clone assassins? Don’t worry about it; we’ve got the situation under control,” said Warshaw.
“We found traces of a particle we’re calling ‘Tachyon D’ on New Copenhagen. There are large concentrations of that same particle on a few of your planets,” said the scientist.
“Oh, we’re back to them being my planets,” Warshaw said, clearly trying to be unreasonable.
“The highest concentration is on Olympus Kri. We also found it on Terraneau.”
“So you think we should abandon our planets because you found this particle?” Warshaw asked.
“There’s no point staying,” I said. “Whatever hit New Copenhagen, it didn’t leave much behind.”
Warshaw softened, and asked, “How many people died on New Copenhagen?”
Had I not been sitting right across from him, I would not have heard Andropov quietly whisper, “All of them.” I could not tell if the comment rose out of sarcasm or pain.
“Seven million,” said Hughes.
No one said anything for a few moments after that.
Warshaw broke the silence. “What is the population on Olympus Kri?”
“Seventeen million,” said Hughes, answering quickly, sounding desperate. “We have twenty-five barges capable of transporting 250,000 people at a time.”
“Big boats,” Warshaw said, sounding impressed. “Are they self-broadcasting?”
Hill answered, “No, sir, they are not.”
“So how are you going to get them here?” Warshaw asked. Hill answered again. “We need you to link the Mars broadcast station into your network.”
“Mars station? I thought the Mogats busted it,” Warshaw said, finally sitting up straight and taking the meeting seriously. Now it wasn’t just a question of saving lives; our military security was at stake. Warshaw might not have cared about lives and evacuations, but he took security seriously.
“We’ve constructed a temporary station,” Hill said. “It’s primitive, but it will do the job for now.”
Warshaw’s eyes narrowed and hardened. His mouth worked itself into a sneer. “So we open the gates and let you roll your horse in. I’m not biting,” he said. He turned to me, and added, “And you, Harris, I never figured you for a collaborator.”
“Admiral . . .” Andropov began, at the same time as Hughes, Hill, and the scientist from the academy.
But I was the one who had been challenged. I spoke over them. “Get this through your head, you overinflated son of a bitch. We have a new enemy, someone too big and mean to beat. There’s no question who is going to win this one. The only question is how many people we are going to lose.”
“If they’re telling the truth,” Warshaw muttered.
“Oh, right, we can’t trust the Unifieds. Tell you what. Let’s run a test on Olympus Kri,” I said. “We’ll just wait and watch, and after seventeen million people burn, then we’ll know it’s time to evacuate Terraneau. Is that what you want?”
An angry silence filled the room. We all sat staring into the table.
“Okay, so let’s say you’re right. Even if we get everybody off Olympus Kri, where do you plan on putting them?” Warshaw asked. It was the closest thing to an olive branch that he was willing to offer. He sat rigid in his chair, no longer flexing his muscles.
“We have to save them,” Hughes said, sounding tired and discouraged.
“If you’re routing them through Mars and taking them to Earth, your barges better have broadcast engines,” Warshaw said.
“I told you, we’ve got a temporary station by Mars,” Andropov said.