The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) (15 page)

The sniper’s next shot sparked off the forward left nacelle
of a rising passenger bus, and it began a slow spin as its driver tried to set
it down on top of a building. Another whistle – an artillery shell actually
struck the bus in midair, and Harkins’ view was obscured by smoke and dust.

In short order, Aziz’s artillery corrected its aim and
blasted several holes in the compound wall. As Beta Comae Berenices set to
their west, his infantry attacked, and within an hour it was all over.

Chita, Transbaikalia, Russia, Earth

Although they were expecting it, the explosion still made
them jump. The windows rattled, and a weak cloud of dust fell from the hotel
room’s ceiling onto the two men. Outside, about two kilometers distant, a gray
cloud roiled upward.

This is fighting dirty
, Donovan thought.

“Finn did well,” Gardiner
Fairchild said. Donovan grunted in response.

It was a Sunday, so the mining camp’s security center would
be emptier than usual, but the explosion was certain to have killed some
company enforcers. Fairchild’s plan had come together beautifully: His agents
had worked the Chinese labor movement into a frenzy, and they had ensured the
right supplies reached the extremists among them. Finn, meanwhile, had been
hired by the security forces, and he had used their access codes to get the
bombers into the security center.

Now, we let the Russians do what they do best.

Near Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin

All of them but Lopez hid their uniforms and rifles under
a pile of rocks, and Rand donned some cheap tan-and-black civilian work threads
that would probably mark him as an underpaid ranch hand. He had a brief, secret
desire to put on one of the shiny violet outfits he used to wear to the
casinos, but the mission here was to go unnoticed.
Man, I need some leave
time when I get out of here. Lose myself in a real city on Earth, eat a steak, win
some money on the green felt, charm the clothes off a few of the …

“Ready, Castillo?” Violet Kelley asked sharply. “Your hair
is still too short, so try to slouch a little when walking around in the
detention camp. Your identification caster will check out with their security
AI, but there will be real-live Chinese eyeballs on you from time to time, and
the brains behind those eyeballs won’t recall seeing you before. If they get
nervous, they’ll disbelieve the identification caster and run your face against
their database, and at that point you’ll be lucky if all they do is kill you.
So try to blend in, all right?”

“You bet, Violet.” Rand smiled sweetly at her, and he saw
Aguirre and Lopez share a glance and smirk. It was a typical exchange for NSS
operative and the artillery officer: worst case scenario from Violet, disarmed
by no argument from Rand.

They had gotten to know Ruiz on the hike to the camp. He was
32, from somewhere in the vast working class sections of the Southern
California megalopolis. He mentioned a rough childhood, a largely absent
father, and being in range of the gang wars, although he said he didn’t take
part “all that much.” But he had gone to school often enough, and he managed to
absorb a few books about the great explorers of prior centuries, and the new
ones of the current era.

“The world was bigger than twenty square blocks of south
LA,” he said, his professional demeanor cracking ever-so-slightly. “But I
couldn’t figure any way out but the military, so I signed up.”

They had waited until nightfall to go inside, and Ruiz led
them to a storm drain outside the internment camp’s walls. “As far as we know,
the Hans never found this exit point,” he told them. “It was part of the first
camp on the planet, before Sycamore was formally laid out. It comes out in an
arroyo in the tent city.”

Lopez remained behind, curling up in the mouth of the drain,
rifle resting on her legs. The pipe was large enough they could crouch and
duck-walk along it.
Too easy, too easy, too easy,
Rand kept thinking,
wondering when the Hans’ vaunted internal security would shut the trap.
One autosentry
gun in here
…

They emerged into the promised ditch, filled with weeds
poking through the broken concrete embankment. More than a little trash had
found its way down here, as well.

And they were in shadow, for the moment. Bright floodlights
looked into the internment camp, and drones circled languidly above, the noise
from their fans combining into a locust-like hum.

They waited. It was late winter in Kuan Yin’s northern
hemisphere, and the days were now as long as the nights at Sycamore’s latitude:
eight hours each. A curfew that lined up with darkness was unworkable under
those conditions, but Chinese security forces paid far more attention to groups
of people walking around the camp after the sun had set, Ruiz told them. Once
dawn broke, they left Aguirre in the pipe, and Rand, Ruiz and Kelley walked out
into the open, joining the loitering crowds of American prisoners.

U.N. Terraforming Station 27, Republic of Tecolote, Entente

Harkins tried to deal with the carnage in front of her by
ignoring it. Instead she mourned for the waste of good cars, like the vintage
2118 Arrow Industries Dauntless that lay broken on the ground in front of her.
Someone
must have shipped this beauty from Earth years ago. What an end, shot down by a
fifty-caliber bullet at the edge of civilization.

But the child’s bloodied hand, exposed in a mass of rubble,
snapped her back, and she had to look away.
It’s just war,
she told
herself, but a voice nagged at her.
Did your parents die with you?
she
thought to the hand.
Or are they somewhere else, wondering what happened to
you?

Lieutenant Mercer didn’t look away, though. He stared and
stared at the child’s hand, until one of Aziz’s aides walked up and said the
colonel wanted to see him immediately.

They went, following the aide into a building. Its white exterior
walls were pockmarked by a few bullet holes, but the structure was otherwise
intact. From inside, it looked like a hospital, lots of long corridors and
closed doors, with labels like “Cephalochordata Adaptation Lab.”

They descended a staircase into a hall lit only by red
emergency lights. Harkins briefly wondered if some genetically engineered
bug-eyed monster was going to leap out at them, but they quickly arrived in a
spacious room. Thin pipes ran from floor to ceiling, and handcuffed to one of
them was a large, rough man in the tan field uniform of the rebels.

Colonel Aziz stood before him, his back to Neil and Harkins.
“You know this will be better than what Kathy would do to you,” he told the
prisoner.

The captive gulped air and nodded. “I know.”

Aziz said, “I owe you that much, traitor. But nothing more.”

Neil cleared his throat, and Aziz turned to face them and
smiled grimly. “Our biggest catch of the day.”

Neil nodded. “Colonel Tan Pierce.”

The defector colonel looked at Mercer and said evenly,
“You’re backing the wrong horse, American. Conrad’s government is corrupt to
the core. All these people want is a constitution that guarantees some basic
rights, and for that, they get slaughtered.” He opened his mouth to say more,
but Aziz gut-punched him, and he doubled over.

Aziz said, “Lieutenant Mercer, I doubt there’s much for you
in here. We’ll ask him about what support the Chinese are providing. But I
would like for you to inspect two other prisoners, in one of the rooms down the
hall. One of them claims to know you.”

Mercer’s face was a mask. “All right.”

They walked into the hall, unescorted.

Harkins fell in behind the lieutenant, and asked, “What the
hell is going on here, sir?”

He turned to face her. “They know it’s best if we don’t
witness what they’re going to do to him. They’ll interrogate and probably torture
him for a while, and then kill him. They’ll tell us he was shot trying to
escape.”

“And this base? Why’d it go so easy?”

“I asked one of the company commanders about that. The
rebels’ main fighting force wasn’t here, after all.  Some of the prisoners said
they had gathered their families here, and they were going to all go up to the
north end of the island. That’s why we ran into all those little ambushes on
the way up. They were trying to delay us so they could evacuate the
noncombatants. Some of them got away; most didn’t.”

The room with the two prisoners was labeled “Accipitridae
Acclimation.” Inside, seated and handcuffed to chairs, were one man and one woman,
both with East Asian features uncommon to Tecolote. One of Aziz’s troopers, wearing
a single sublieutenant’s bar on his cap, stood behind them, his rifle unslung
and pointed at the ground.

The male prisoner was in his mid-twenties, muscular and
good-looking, with a mop of black hair atop a sculpted, angular face. He stared
straight ahead and made no sign that he noticed their entry.

The woman was glassy-eyed, but she was in slight, unsteady
motion, a person fighting to regain her wits. Neil immediately went to her and
kneeled.

“Your name is Misaki, isn’t it? We met in San José. You’re
Akita’s assistant,” he said.

Who?
Harkins wondered.

The woman’s head wobbled slightly, and she focused on him
and nodded.

He looked at the Tecolote officer. “Did you do this to her?
Drug her?”

“No,” the officer replied in accented English. He motioned
to the man. “This one was questioning her in this room. He did not stop, even
as we came in.”

“Questioning about what?”

“He was speaking a language I do not understand.”

“The woman, she’s not an enemy. Release her, right now.”

Harkins thought the guy might argue, so she locked eyes on
him and tried to look menacing. Without a word, the sublieutenant removed
Misaki’s handcuffs.

“What about this one?” the officer said.

“Keep him restrained.”

They took Misaki to still another room, “Castorimorpha
Breeding.” The lieutenant didn’t tell Harkins to do anything, so she posted
herself by the door.

“Misaki, can you concentrate? Talk to me. What happened to
you? Where’s Akita?”

“I remember you now, Lieutenant Mercer. But who is Akita?”
It was the first time Neil had heard her speak.

Mercer’s head jerked back. “Your employer. Kitsune.”

She shook her head. “Akita, yes, his name here. They killed
him! They took us after the riot and brought us here. They thought Akita was
Kitsune, and when he couldn’t tell him anything, the Chinese interrogator gave
up and killed him.”

“I’m sorry, Misaki,” Neil said. “Wait … they
thought
he
was Kitsune? He wasn’t?”

She looked straight at him for the first time. “I am
Kitsune. Akita was one of my public faces, my secretary and bodyguard. He handled
the social aspects of my job … Ah, the drugs are making me say too much, with
an unknown person in the room.”

Harkins said, “My name is Ruth. I’m all right, I promise.”

Misaki nodded. “They did not learn our true identities. They
never asked the right questions, of me, or Akita, or we would have told them.
They just assumed who was who.”

Neil said to Misaki, “You certainly fooled me. How did they
know you were here?”

“Someone told. The enemy agent in your consulate. Did you
share information about my presence with anyone?”

“No.”

“Then it was Gomez. Either she is the agent, or she told
someone, who told that Chinese spy in the other room. Only you and she had
knowledge of our whereabouts the day we were taken.”

Harkins wondered how she could be so certain.
Maybe the
bad guys are into the embassy comms somewhere. Wouldn’t be the first time
,
she thought, remembering a stint on embassy duty on Earth
.

Neil said, “We’ll look into it. For now, we’ll get you back
to San José. Do you need to see a doctor?”

“No. I know the drug they used on me, and it is already
wearing off. I do need to be scanned for any devices they may have implanted in
me.”

“Do you want us to take you to the Japanese consulate?”

“No. The fewer people who know I am here, the better. I want
to visit my hotel room to collect some items, and then I would be most grateful
if you could locate some alternate accommodations for me.”

“You could stay with me,” Neil said. “But I’m at the
consulate, and you’d likely be seen.”

Harkins spoke up. “I’m at a hotel near downtown, but no
one’s been there but Lieutenant Mercer and me, so you could stay there.”

“Thank you, Ruth.”

From down the hall, a gun barked a single shot. A moment
later, Colonel Aziz entered. His holster was unsnapped.

“Colonel Pierce made a break for it,” he said. “It didn’t go
well for him. Tell me, who is this person?”

The lie came easy. “This is an American national who had
been kidnapped by the rebels,” Neil said. “She’s grateful for your rescue but
is very shaken up. With your permission, I’m taking her back to the capital.”

“That true? You an American?” Aziz said to Kitsune.

“Yes.” Her accent was subtly different.

Aziz nodded. “Then that’s fine, Lieutenant. Who is the other
one?”

“Chinese operative.”

“Then I imagine General Naima would like to speak with him.
I guess I’ll bring him back to San José with the rest of you. The president’s
recalled me to answer for this operation. Apparently, he wants to open
negotiations with the rebels and no longer prefers us to kill them.” He shook
his head. “I took an enemy base with minimal casualties, took out a turncoat
and a foreign spy, and somehow I’m in trouble. I’d hate to think what would
have happened if I’d lost.”

TOKYO – Coordinated peace protests around the planet
and on several colony worlds on Saturday drew hundreds of thousands of
demonstrators and in some cases violent government responses. Police conducted
mass arrests in scores of cities; reporters observed at least one person killed
by security forces in Guangzhou and another in Oakland. “We are trying to send
a message to governments that they do not have our consent to carry out this
pointless war,” said Lu Caihou, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for the Transcend
Borders movement. “Humanity has found sufficient elbow room among the stars to
last for thousands of years; certainly we can put aside poisonous reactionary
nationalism and reach a compromise over future exploration.” Counterprotests
sprung up in several cities, as well. “In wartime, there’s no such thing as a
loyal opposition,” said Jack Houston, a veteran who joined a hastily organized
“Support America” march in Seattle. “Every war protest gives encouragement to
the enemy that our side is ready to give in.”

Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin

A hot, dry wind buffeted the white Red Cross tent as Rand,
Kelley and Ruiz met with the some of the internment camp’s nominal leaders. The
three men and two women looked haggard and tired like everyone else they had
encountered, but the camp itself was in better shape than Rand had expected:
Their Chinese captors were taking out some of the trash, at least. No human
guards walked inside the compound; that was left to drones, some in the sky,
and some rolling along on the wide streets.

“We’re sorry we couldn’t have more of us here,” said their
leader, Moira Tobin, a thin woman with long silver hair and tan skin
slow-cooked by years in the sun. “A lot of people would get a real boost in
seeing the people who are still fighting for them. But we have learned the
drones always pay attention to gatherings of more than eight people in the
camps. All the same, we’re delighted to have you here. We were about to send
some people out to contact you.”

Violet Kelley rubbed her temples. “I don’t recognize any of
your names,” she said. “Why are you in authority? What happened to Governor
Rivera?”

Tobin frowned. “Rivera and the other surviving feds were
taken to a separate detention center shortly after the camp was set up, and we
haven’t seen them since. The Hans don’t seem to understand our way of
government too well; they locked up the meat inspector and postmaster alongside
the governor and the FBI agent. They left most of the local officials in the
camp, but they monitor them closely because they fear it will be a bunch of
city councilors who will lead the uprising. Because they are unable to do
anything meaningful, we’re representing them to our friends outside the camp.”

“I’ve met with Miz Tobin and the others before, Miz Kelley.
They’re legit,” Ruiz said.

“So if we ask you to, say, stage a riot to divert the Hans,
you can pull it off?” Kelley asked.

Tobin’s body jerked back slightly. “Violence is your
province, not ours. We are trying to protect the safety of thousands of
families here. The Chinese are our enemies and captors, but they have not been
cruel. We are fed, and they have removed guards we have shown to be abusing
their authority.”

“Do you want your homes back, or not?”

“Of course we do. But we will not start a fight we have no
hope of winning.”

“Does everyone here feel this way?”

“There are a few hotheads who feel differently, but I assure
you, we speak for everyone here,” she said.

But Tobin’s reply came one beat too late, and Rand saw two
of the other camp leaders cast quick sideways glances at one another. He looked
at all of them … not a one under fifty, in his estimation.

“How long have you been on this planet?” he asked Tobin.

All eyes turned to him.

“Four years,” she said, a little too sharply. “You?”

“Got here just before the invasion.”

They all had lives somewhere else,
Rand realized.

Kelley asked, “If you are so committed to inaction, why were
you going to send some of your people to find us?”

“They were to bring you an offer that the Chinese have
conveyed to us, and asked us to convey to you.”

Rand tensed; Ruiz looked toward the tent flap, and Kelley’s
hand went inside her outer shirt. Kelley said, “What? Are you in touch with
them, now? Is this a trap?”

“No, no. As I said, they don’t know that we are anyone
special. We’re the backchannel. Our captors actually seem to think we’re in
greater contact with you than is the case.”

I hope she’s telling the truth,
Rand thought. “All
right, then, what’s this offer? They want to surrender?”

Tobin did not smile. “No. But they have arranged a way for
all of us to get off Kuan Yin and back to American territory.”

Rand snapped his fingers. “The transports! We figured they
were bringing more troops or colonists. But they’re here to take you
off-planet.”

Tobin nodded. “They are European and Federation ships on a mission
of mercy. They are here to take us home.”

Kelley’s frown grew deeper. “Home?”

“America, or Independence, or Columbia. Anywhere but this
horrid little territory. More ships are coming; together, they can take all of
us. That includes you military people and all the POWs. The Chinese would
prefer you formally surrender, but they let us know that if you leave your
weapons behind and come into the camp, you can depart by hiding among the
civilians.”

“Why haven’t they just forced you onto the transports?”
Kelley asked.

“Europa and the Federation insist it must be voluntary on
our part.”

“What does the USG think?” Ruiz asked.

“We don’t know. We had hoped you were in communication with
higher authorities.”

“We were,” Rand said. “There’s an American ship at the
keyhole, monitoring things here, but we’re not in touch any more. Too much
jamming.”

“Then we’re truly on our own,” Tobin said.

“I can tell you what they would say,” Kelley said. “No. This
is American territory. They won’t cede it to the Chinese any more than they
would Ohio. If the USG was on board, the Hans would have proved it to you
somehow.”

“In the end, it doesn’t matter,” Tobin said. “We won’t be
pawns so the politicians can claim they plan to liberate us someday. The
Chinese won here, Ms. Kelley. We’ve all wasted a year of our lives in this
camp, and now we have the chance to start over somewhere else.”

“Go, then, and leave the fighting to people who aren’t
cowards.”

Tobin didn’t rise to the insult. “The Chinese say it’s all
or nothing: Either everyone agrees to go, or no one goes.”

“Then it’s nothing,” Kelley said.

“Violet, that’s enough,” Rand said. She turned toward him,
fury in her eyes.
Did I just lose her for good?
To Tobin, he said, “I’ll
take it to my commanders. I won’t predict what they will say.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Tobin said. “I was about to ask if the
military still answers to civilian authority, or to the sort of people Ms.
Kelley represents. The Hans promise they will start tightening the screws if we
don’t comply. Already, they’ve cut our water ration by twenty percent, while we
can see the Chinese colonists’ lawn sprinklers going on outside the wall every
morning. And it’s going to get worse. Frankly, while we have no physical means
to control what you people do, this really isn’t a request. We’ve made up our
minds here. This is an order. In one week, you are to return here and tell us
your commanders have accepted the Chinese proposal. One week after that, all
military personnel on Kuan Yin are to make their way into this camp or
surrender outright.”

Republic of Tecolote, Entente

All around Neil were soldiers, dressed in slate blue
suitable for boarding operations on an enemy spacecraft. They were under
thrust, decelerating toward their target, which was still days away. Most were tethered
to their bunks, which were arrayed in neat stacks and columns up and down the
cavernous hold. But a few of his comrades floated around in the microgravity,
talking nervously, checking their stowed gear, or patting one another on the
back or shoulder.

An unfamiliar, three-beat alarm chime sounded, and everyone
looked at the hull around them, reminded that only a few centimeters of carbon
and metal separated them from the void.

A voice from the bridge, speaking in hurried tones. Some of
the soldiers in view began donning battle armor. The ship turned violently, and
there were cries as unsecured men and women were thrown against bulkheads.

But most who were loose made it to a bunk and strapped
themselves in. Neil looked across the way at one of his friends, a young,
black-haired, olive-skinned medic, who smiled weakly.

More alarms, different tones, a shout over the ship’s
internal comms. Inbound kinetics! Neil became fully weightless as the ship’s
drive cut out, before a harsh turn pressed him painfully against the straps.

Although they were warriors, trained and disciplined, a
collective fear took hold. They were out of their element, at the mercy of the battle
around them, unable to affect its outcome.
This was not supposed to happen! Where
was the fleet? It was there to protect us!

And then a shaky baritone broke forth in song, one of the
Taiwanese gopop tunes with an easy beat that was popular about five years ago,
when most of the troops were in high school. It was a juvenile song of wild
parties and missed loves, and everyone began singing along. Normally the lieutenants
would have stopped such an undignified outburst, but here and now, they joined
in.

They hit the chorus, and the first coilgun shell burst into
the great cabin somewhere above Neil, exploding in a shower of plasma that
killed everyone it touched. More shells struck the troopship in a line, each
coming closer to Neil. How odd, he thought, that his lungs still had air in
them …

A bright flash, close by, and a roar. Blue fire washed over
him, and everything, everything was burning …

… and Neil jerked awake, a sharp crease of pain lancing
through his forehead, right about where a piece of the old
San Jacinto
had
struck him during the Battle of Kennedy Station. The details of the dream
already fading, leaving him with only a deep anxiety he could not put words to.

A wicked bounce threw him up against his restraint. He was in
the cargo area of a big Tecolote army truck, riding back to San José. Harkins snored
powerfully next to him, and a few of Colonel Aziz’s troops were up near the
driver’s cabin, awake but silent.

And Misaki – Kitsune – was across from him. She looked
bleary again.

She saw he was awake and leaned forward so they could talk
over the noise of the truck. Her eyes looked loose and moist.

“You knew Admiral Tanaka,” she said.

“Yes.” Neil had witnessed Tanaka’s ship massacring thousands
of Chinese colonists before the United States joined the war, and then had
dinner with the man.

“He is a vain fool, but a predictable one. The people who
put him in command are worse. We struggle over our national narrative in Japan,
as every country does, but those who see Japan as something exceptional have
the upper hand. Yes, we led the world to the stars, but that doesn’t mean we own
them for all time, or we’ll win the wars over them. It is likely we already
would have been defeated if the Anglosphere countries had not joined us.”

Neil was fully awake.
She’s still drugged, and talking.
Chance to learn something here.
“You’re opposed to the war?”

“It ignores economic and demographic realities. Japan’s
ascendance in world affairs was temporary; there just aren’t enough of us,
relative to China, Europa and the United States. We were always destined to be
surpassed, but our belief in our superiority, and a desire to maintain our
preeminence, led us to build so many weapons, and then decide to use them.”

“I won’t lie,” Neil said. “I have had a hard time
understanding why Japan needs more than five colony planets, yet you are
fighting for more.”

“That is from one version of events, the one you Americans
seem to prefer. We can all make claims about what caused this war, but we never
really know. One can point to structural causes, like the reduced growth in our
economy in the last fifteen years, and note that declining powers tend to make
war on those who would supplant them. Or one can point to our loss of standing
with our former friends in Southeast Asia. Or our longstanding cultural and
historic disputes with China. We can say certain things were necessary for the
war to happen, and other things simply made it more likely. But was any single
event sufficient? As badly as we want to build a version of history that says
it is so, we are just making claims. Indeed, I can tell a story in which a
single meeting that was prevented from taking place should be counted as the
singular necessary
cause
of the war. But, in the end, I don’t know if
any of that is true. None of us
know.”

“Why are you telling me this, Misaki?”

For a moment, it seemed like she didn’t hear him. “You’re on
a short list of people my organization has identified as – well.” She shook her
head slightly, growing more aware she was saying unnecessary things. “It seems
I have not fully escaped the effects of the Hans’ drugs. But I was going to
say, we’ve identified you as someone we can work with, and that if you ever
have troubles with your own government, know you have an ally in us.”

She lapsed into silence and dozed off. Neil considered
waking her to keep her talking, but that felt cruel. He sat back and closed his
eyes.
I wish I was Harkins. That Marine can sleep.

Neil returned to his apartment in San José in the dark
hours of the morning, after dropping off Kitsune and Harkins at the hotel. He slept
again and woke before his alarm went off. Outside his window the sky was a bright
azure. Five hours of sleep, he calculated, when his ocular told him the time.
Not
enough
, he thought, wishing yet again he had not left his sleeping pills
back on
Apache
.