Killing Time

CHAPTER 21

As Larissa began to direct the rail cannon's fire in every direction, pounding away with glowing bursts at the midsize and larger interceptors that were being sent against us (the ship's magnetic fields deflected the smaller ones), the stratosphere was lit up by dozens of explosions, as well as by the indiscriminate but no less dangerous fire of the space-based laser. My job during the encounter was to help Eli try to determine just which long-range radar station was giving our position away to the American THAAD command. Apparently there were only a few monitoring sites sophisticated enough to be able to thwart our ship's stealth technology by doggedly fixing on the confusing combination of wave reflections and absorptions that the vessel was orchestrating (and that the Americans had presumably tagged as ours after they'd made visual contact in Afghanistan). Using the banks of equipment in the turret, Eli — operating in that cool but no less energized and sometimes even jovial manner that I now accepted as normal for everyone on board the ship — finally determined that a remote English base was the most likely culprit. His hypothesis was confirmed by Leon Tarbell, who, working on a lower deck, managed to intercept and descramble a series of communications between the English and American air forces.

We needed to know all this, Eli explained, because now that our ship was definitely being tracked, once we dropped back down out of the stratosphere, we could expect to be greeted by more conventional but no less deadly air ordnance than was currently being thrown against us. If we could determine what and whose planes they were going to be, Colonel Slayton could program our ship's computers to fly in an appropriately evasive pattern at a requisite speed. Eli seemed quite confident that this represented no overwhelming challenge, and as we talked over the prospect of going up against warplanes — be they human- or computer-piloted — I found myself being infected by his eager, slightly piratical enthusiasm.

This surprising reaction was only heightened when the ship's alert system went off, letting us know that we were beginning to descend and needed to get ready for a new and perhaps deadlier kind of action. Our enemy now would be not some antiballistic missile system that since its deluded inception had been destined for failure, but attack craft fully intent on shooting us down. Apparently there had been other such encounters; indeed, according to various radio transmissions intercepted by Tarbell in months past, Malcolm's ship had assumed a sort of mythical status among the world's air forces and navies. And given the very powerful ordnance that the warplanes of such countries as England and the United States were now routinely carrying, along with the skill of the pilots who both flew them personally and — as in the case of the American raid on Afghanistan— guided them from the remote safety of theirs ships and bases, escape had sometimes been a near thing.

So it would be on this occasion. As we dropped into the cloudy skies over the North Sea near the fifty-ninth parallel, we were almost immediately intercepted by Royal Air Force fighters. The planes struck dark, angular silhouettes against the setting sun, giving them a very intimidating appearance. When I turned to Larissa, I saw her sizing them up with a nod and a defiant smile; but concern was evident in her look, as well.

"Gideon," she called to me, "see if you can find out what's happening forward, will you?" She clutched the control handles of the cannon tightly but did not fire. "My brother doesn't like to use lethal force in situations like this, but if those things don't actually have pilots I'm going to indulge myself…"

Rushing down the ladder and through the corridor, I entered the nose of the ship to find Malcolm and Colonel Slayton at the control panels, Slayton calmly but quickly tapping information into one of the guidance terminals. "They're the new Joint Strike Force ultra-stealth models," he said. "First-day-of-war, highly survivable aircraft, armed with AIM-10 Predator missiles that can carry biological, nuclear, or conventional warheads."

"Manned?" Malcolm asked.

"I'm afraid so. They haven't worked the kinks out of the remote guidance system on this model, yet." Slayton turned to give Tressalian a very serious look. "We may not be able to get out of this without returning fire."

Malcolm — who, I now noticed, looked somewhat feverish— seemed deeply troubled by this statement; before he could answer it, however, Tarbell's voice came over the shipwide address system. "They're hailing us," he said. Then he patched the voice of one of the pilots through: "Unidentified aircraft: you are in violation of British airspace. Accompany our escort to the nearest field or be fired upon."

Touching a keypad on the console in front of him, Malcolm replied pointedly, "'English aircraft: as far as we're concerned this is Scottish Republican airspace. You therefore have no authority to challenge us." He turned to Slayton. "Can we outrun them?"

Slayton shrugged. "We haven't come up against this model yet. We should be able to, but they've got a signature lock now— wherever we go they'll be able to track us, and if we head for the island they'll come after us with a lot more than just a squadron. We could dive, but we'll have to slow down — not much, but it would be enough to let one of the Predators catch up to us. And over the open sea I don't think they'd hesitate to go nuclear. The only choice I can see is going back up, but—"

There was a moment's silence, leaving it to me to step in: "But what?"

Malcolm, whose face was definitely growing paler by the minute, tapped a finger impatiently. "Colonel Slayton is attempting to be tactful, Gideon. The truth is that we've been away for an unusually long stretch, this trip, and it's becoming somewhat urgent, as I'm sure you've noticed, that I get back to our medical facilities on the island." Beads of sweat began to form on his brow, as had happened before: clearly another attack was coming. Knowing the origins of his mysterious illness and the circumstances of his past as I now did, I was filled with even greater sympathy than I had been on the first occasion. I also felt heightened respect for his stoicism: "This really is irritating," was his summation of the situation. "All right, then, Colonel, if we must—" He stopped suddenly, listening; then he held a hand to his collar. "You're sure?" he said over the link to his sister. He began to crane his neck, looking all around the transparent sheathing of the hull. "How far? I can't see — wait, there they are!"

Slayton and I turned with him to catch sight of another squadron of planes descending from behind and above us. Their silhouettes were more conventional than those of the British planes, and they weren't as fast — clearly, these were much older models. But they nonetheless swept in to engage the superior craft of our pursuers courageously. As they passed close by, I could see that they had large crosses of Saint Andrew painted on their fuselages.

To my puzzled look Slayton said, "Some of our friends in the Scottish Republican Air Force, Dr. Wolfe."

One of the results of England's international redefinition following the controversy over the Churchill-Princip letters that had "revealed" British leaders to have been responsible for the First World War had been a decision by the Scottish Parliament to formally declare its nation's independence. What was unknown to the world was that Malcolm's team, having forged those letters, had been indirectly responsible for that momentous vote. In addition, when Malcolm had sold his controlling interest in the Tressalian Corporation so that he could devote himself fully to his disinformation campaign, he'd used some of the fantastic proceeds to secretly purchase a group of small Hebridean islands from the Scots. The price had been substantial enough to allow Edinburgh to launch an effective armed resistance to England's efforts to resubjugate its northern neighbor, and in the years since, Malcolm had continued to contribute generously to what London insisted on calling "the Scottish rebellion" but the rest of the world had dubbed "the Scottish war of independence." Some of the practical results of his generosity were apparently now on display in the air around us.

"But will they really attack the English planes?" I asked. "They don't look like they'd stand a chance."

"They wouldn't," Slayton said. "They're flying old Harriers, armed with Sparrows — too slow, and not enough punch. But that's not the point. All they have to do is keep the English planes occupied long enough to give us a chance to dive."

So they, and we, did: within moments our ship was once again under the waves. We cruised quickly through the Pentland Firth and westward into the Atlantic, then southwest, at a shallow enough depth to be able to tell that the ocean surface above us was extremely agitated. I was nevertheless unprepared for just how rough the waves were when we shot back up into the air: it was fortunate that we didn't have to ride them but could cruise along at an altitude of some fifty feet.

In a matter of minutes our destination became visible: seven small bits of land dotted the water ahead. As we approached, I could see that they were marked by high, dramatic rock formations, hidden coves, and windswept green fields.

"Well, Gideon," Malcolm said, his discomfort alleviated at least somewhat by the prospect of an end to our journey, "welcome. Welcome to the Islands at the Edge of the World…"