A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 16 Pink Storm Rising

A mountain range of pink, ominous and bright, was painted like a wall across the whole western half of the sky.

How could anything so beautiful and so peaceful looking also be so terrifying? It loomed up over the horizon like a massive smoky fence dividing this world impassively from the next. Silent and huge, it was a dreadful, towering cloudbank. Rosy and fluffy, a cotton-candy tidal wave, it rolled up into the blue forever, the crest already toppling downward toward us. The yellow sun dipped darkly down behind it; soon it would disappear completely, leaving the rusty Mexican landscape shrouded in warm gloom.

What the hell?

What was wrong with Marano? Why hadn't she warned us-? I turned to yell-

Where the hell was the other van? The slight rise where it had been parked was empty.

I gaped stupidly for half a minute before I comprehended-then I started running and screaming. I was halfway up the hill before I stopped, out of breath and so pissed I could have ripped apart a whole nest of worms with my bare hands. The flattened vegetation showed where the rollagon had come crushing down and around in a great wide loop, before heading back out toward the pickup point.

I stood there, panting angrily, then realized that I wasn't accomplishing anything this way, turned and headed back toward the command vehicle. I swore the whole long distance back.

Willig was standing just outside the vehicle, staring up the slope in me. So was Siegel. He had the safety off on his flamethrower, and he looked very worried.

"Where's the backup vehicle?" I demanded.

They shook their heads dumbly. "Didn't Marano contact you?"

"Last contact was half an hour ago. I didn't realize she was overdue until after you-" Willig didn't want to finish the sentence. She didn't want to embarrass me by referring to my momentary disability.

I waved the thought away and pointed at the sky. "See that?" They both nodded.

"In half an hour, we're going to be up to our armpits in pink." I started hammering orders. "Siegel, recall the spybirds, lock down the prowler, and set up a satellite link; we'll resume the operation from base." My headset beeped to life. "Locke, charge all the air tanks in case we have to breathe out of a can for a while. Lopez and Reilly, up topside in the bubbles-full-security lookout. Everybody prepare to move out. Willig, call for emergency pickup. Come on, let's move! Everybody scramble." I climbed up into the rollagon after them and dogged the hatch with a pressurized whoosh.

Willig was the first to report. "Captain, I can't raise the network."

"Say again?"

"The satellites are refusing to recognize our ID."

"That can't be."

"I can't even get a weather scan." She sounded frantic.

"Let me try." I dropped down into my chair and started typing. I recited a steady stream of commands into my headset.

Sorry. This ID is not valid.

Shit. That didn't make sense. I tried again-this time with my personal account number.

Sorry. This ID is not valid.

For a moment, I sat staring, unbelieving. The message on the screen in front of me was incomprehensible. It was a door slammed in my face.

"The son of a bitch," I breathed softly. "He cut us off."

"Who did?"

"The late Randy Dannenfelser."

"Huh? When did he die?"

"He starts tomorrow." I called forward, "Siegel?"

"Prowler's on standby. But I can't set up a satellite link."

"Not surprised. Okay. Plan B. Valada, how's our food and water situation?"

"We're good for two weeks."

"More than enough."

"Uh-oh. I don't like the sound of that."

"Willig? What's the wind velocity?"

"Forty klicks."

"Shit. We'll never outrun it. Okay. Anchor this thing. Make it airtight. You know the drill. Go!"

While they worked, I turned back to my keyboard. Hm. I wondered. It had worked once, a long time ago. What were the chances it would work again? Slowly, I typed in Captain Duke Anderson's ID number and password. I fully expected it to be rejected, but-

The screen lit up in connect mode. "I'll be damned."

"Huh?" Willig glanced over my shoulder. "How'd you do that?"

"Magic," I answered. "Go away, you'll spoil the spell." I folded my arms across my chest and thought for a moment. I had to think about this. I couldn't request any information about this sector. Whatever else Dannenfelser was, he wasn't a fool. He would have installed watchdog programs to monitor all requests. If I'd been doing it, I'd have clamped a security lid on the whole sector.

And I had to be careful what I uploaded too. Any messages originating from this area would be suspect. I couldn't contact anybody in the military directly. Those communications would probably all be monitored and therefore would be directly accessible to Dannenfelser. He wasn't stupid. If I tried contacting anybody I knew, I'd probably be putting them directly on his little list.

There was one person… maybe two.

I punched for Lizard and coded the message Private/ Personal/Confidential/Eyes-Only, and then I scrambled and encrypted it. "I know you're pissed at me," I said. "And I wouldn't blame you if you ignored this message. But I don't have any other channel of communication. We've been totally locked out of the network. I repeat, we've been locked out of the network. We can't even call for pickup. And we've got a big pink cloud headed our way. Lizard, this isn't fair. Maybe I've earned this kind of treatment, but my team shouldn't have to be the victims of this too. This is an emergency, very likely a life-threatening one." I stopped in midthought.

What did I want her to do? What did I expect her to do? I shook my head slowly in confusion. There wasn't really anything she could do for us. It was too late to arrange a pickup. A chopper couldn't get here before the pink cloud rolled over us. Reestablishing the network links would restore the connection with the outside world, but seeing as how we'd already cut them off first, there wasn't a lot we could say to them that wouldn't sound foolish.

I spoke softly as I concluded, "I don't know what you can do to help us. Maybe nothing. But if we don't come back, at least you'll know how we were set up. Don't let them get away with this." I paused to consider my next words. Should I tell her again how much I loved her? I really didn't feel all that loving right now. I sighed. "Over and out."

There was one other person who might accept a message from Captain Duke Anderson (deceased). But I didn't know how he would feel about my using his father's account. I'd inherited it through a particularly nasty chain of events, and even though I hadn't used the access number in a long time, the account had apparently never been disconnected.

I took a breath and sent the message. "General Anderson, this Captain James Edward McCarthy. I don't know if you remember me, but you pulled General Tirelli and me out of a cottan-candy storm a few years back. I'm sorry to have to contact you this way, but I seem to have gotten myself into the same situation again." I wondered how much I could tell him about my mission. What was General Anderson doing these days? What was he cleared to know? I had the sense that Lizard spoke to him occasionally, she'd mentioned his name a few times, but she'd never been very clear about his duties.

"The thing is, sir, that I have no other way of sending a message out. We've been cut off from the network. I believe it's on the direct orders of General Wainright or somebody on his staff. Our backup vehicle has been recalled, and we've been abandoned out here. This isn't right, sir. We've got a very delicate situation. We've got a major-I repeat, major-ecological discovery working. And people are playing politics with us. My team needs your help. I'm not asking for me. I'm asking for them. Please check with General Tirelli. She can background you. This is a life-threatening emergency. Help us, please. Over and out."

I logged off and disconnected. I hoped the messages had gotten onto the network without the location of their origin being tagged.

Willig had been waiting for me to finish transmitting. Now she said, "We'll be under the first edge of it in five minutes. The prowler is on low-energy standby, the spybirds are both back aboard, both are in decontamination, the vehicle is anchored and spiked, lookouts have been set, overhead scanners are active, we're on low-power mode, and confidence is so high, it's giddy." Then she added, in a darker tone, "You've been through this before, haven't you? What can we expect?"

"Boredom, mostly." The look on Willig's face suggested that she didn't believe me. I shrugged and added, "If we're lucky."

"Go ahead," Willig said. "Scare me."

I shook my head honestly. "I don't know. I expect we'll see a feeding frenzy that ripples up and down the whole food chain, but whatever else is going to happen here, I have no idea. I don't know how shamblers or shambler tenants react to cotton-candy storms, and I have even less idea about what might happen down where the prowler is."

"So what do we do?"

I considered it for half a moment. There wasn't much left that needed doing. Rule number one (this week): when in doubt, do nothing. Check your weapon. Eat. Sleep.

We'd already checked our weapons, and the sleep schedule was posted- "Let's have supper."