Terran Tomorrow

CHAPTER 13

Jason strode into the armory with two members of J Squad; more met him there. All wore full armor. They were going to meet the Return when it landed. Li had sent precise instructions to the ship where and when to set down in order to minimize the time it was vulnerable. The chosen rendezvous was far enough away to avoid the snipers and missile launchers undoubtedly hidden in the woods around Monterey Base.

The armory motor pool always seemed to Jason a pathetic remnant for an Army that had once had transport capabilities to deploy a brigade anywhere in the world within ninety-six hours and a full division in a hundred and twenty. It consisted of six FiVees—five here now—three quadcopters, and two Bradleys. Ten years ago, as the world fell apart, Jason had taken considerable risks to get the Bradleys to Monterey. Army research bases did not ordinarily stock armored fighting vehicles, not even older ones. Jason had also secured modification kits for the Bradleys, which were now as good as Bradleys got, although he still regretted that he hadn’t been able to secure any Strykers. Neither Bradley had as yet left base, and the enemy didn’t know they were here.

One was now prepared to roll. Jason was doing everything possible to neutralize possible attack by New America.

It wasn’t enough.

The Bradley roared out of the airlock and accelerated to its top speed, which was not very impressive, across the perimeter. Even before it reached the road, it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The vehicle jerked violently, throwing Jason against Corporal Wharton. The reactive armor installed between the armor plates exploded as it was supposed to, neutralizing the incoming fire.

“Direct hit, sir,” Private Kandiss shouted, unnecessarily. The Bradley bulldozed through the cloud of dust thrown up by the hit and kept going. The gunner was kept busy. Noise like falling mountains assaulted eardrums. Two more RPGs, and the Bradley turned off-road toward the river.

Immediately the ride became even rougher. The soldiers crammed into the small space bounced and clutched. Jason kept his eyes on the video display. New America had FiVees much faster than the Bradley, but no FiVee could go against the Bradley’s chain gun. He saw no FiVees. The armored vehicle crunched over saplings and rocks, keeping to open country.

The river finally came in sight, a dull ribbon under the low sky. The rain, which had stopped, began again.

“Okay, river ahead,” Jason said. “We turn north along it and—”

A Stryker tore toward them from a grove of trees.

No—New America did not have Strykers! Except, they did now.

The Stryker had slat armor; it could withstand any ordnance that the Bradley could fire without stopping. Nor could the Bradley outrun the Stryker; tracked vehicles were just not as fast as wheeled ones. But they were more stable, with better mobility over rough terrain. And—

“Make directly for the river, Sergeant. Gunner, if anything moves, shoot it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Stryker gained on the Bradley, firing constantly. Jason lost track of the hits. The river, when they reached it, ran a few feet below a rocky bank. “Go! Go!”

The Bradley plunged over the bank, swaying wildly. Jason held his breath. Then they were in the river, powering across at maximum water speed of eight miles per hour. A Bradley was not an amphibious assault vehicle. Please don’t let the water level be too high….

It wasn’t. The Bradley lumbered across the light rapids and emerged, climbing the bank as it shed water, on the other side.

Jason had hoped that the Stryker, wheeled, would flip when it dived over riverbank. It didn’t, but it hit a rock, bounced, and came down mired in mud.

On the video display, the Return descended from orbit. If the Stryker had a lucky warhead shot…

“Go! Go!”

They raced toward the ship. It set down silently, rain sliding off its silvery hull. Jason and his troops were already out of the Bradley and running. They were barely inside the airlock when the Return lifted, soaring high above the rainy land beneath and the missile from the Stryker that just missed the hull.

Jason gazed down at the dwindling Bradley. New America would claim it, of course. But not for long.

Information Tech Specialist Ruby Martin waited just beyond the airlock. “Sir, welcome aboard. Lieutenant Allen instructed me to tell you that something has happened aboard.”

“What?” On the wall screen, Earth fell away. Now the sky was black above a band of deep violet shading into grayish-white below them and blue on the horizon, which curved away in every direction. Already they were well into the stratosphere.

Martin said, “Major Farouk has passed out and can’t be revived. We don’t know what drugs he might have taken or if this is a suicide attempt or—”

“It’s not.” Christ, another one. “Did Major Farouk learn anything useful about the ship before he went comatose?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Did he leave notes?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you learned anything more about the ship’s communications capability?”

“A little more, yes, by experimenting.”

“Do you think you can contact HQ at Fort Hood, if we fly there?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, with noticeable pride. “I think I can.”

“Good. Take me to the bridge. Sergeant, keep the squad here.”

The ship seemed vaster inside than out, although Jason knew that was impossible. Jane had explained to him that the insides had been built for Worlders to found a colony, with animal pens and seed stores and food supplies, none of which remained. The inside of the Return had been scoured and stripped before she launched for Earth. All that remained were wooden partitions—no metal ones—that Worlders had erected to divide the space into rooms and corridors, with far fewer of each than in the two domes at Monterey Base. In that respect, the inside of the Return resembled Colin’s Settlement.

But only in that respect. Jason walked past the FiVee that he had ordered, along with a lot of ordnance, loaded onto the ship during its previous landing. He said abruptly, “Specialist, did Major Farouk mention having headaches before he went unconscious?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you had headaches or sleepiness? Has Lieutenant Allen, or Corporal Michaelson?”

She looked startled. “No. Sir?”

“Never mind.”

The bridge was a surprisingly small and unpretentious space ringed with strange machinery and three wall screens, only one active. It showed Earth, now the blue-and-white globe familiar from a million pictures and holos. Seth Allen sat on a wooden bench that looked as if it had once been a low table, topped with a cushion woven of rough cloth. More cushions were heaped in the corner. He and Michaelson stood and saluted.

“As you were. Lieutenant, is that supposed to be a captain’s chair?”

He grinned. “Sir, the Worlders like to sit on heaped-up cushions. I don’t.”

“Understandable.” Jason realized that he had no idea how the Worlders lived at Monterey Base; he’d never been in any of their quarters. Did Jane sit on cushions instead of chairs, eating or studying English at a low table? “Where is Major Farouk?”

Martin said, “We dragged him to bed, sir.”

“Good. Lieutenant, can you fly the ship at this altitude to HQ at Fort Hood?”

“At a lower height, yes. I need to navigate visually, unless I can home in on a long-range signal.”

“No signal, not until we get there. Take the ship down to above a hundred thousand feet.”

“Altitude is difficult to calculate, sir—I don’t understand their measurements.”

“What do you understand?”

He pointed to a small screen. “This shows symbols that seem to correspond to air temperature. The high troposphere is much colder than the stratosphere above it. Stratosphere starts at about forty thousand feet, at this latitude.”

Jason didn’t ask how he knew that; Allen possessed a curious mind interested in any branch of science with military application. It was why Jason, lacking a trained pilot, had assigned him to the Return.

“I want the ship low enough for rough visual navigation but still as high as you can—high enough to avoid attack by F-35s.”

His eyes widened. “Yes, sir. I can try.”

“What is the fuel situation?”

“I haven’t been able to determine that, and neither had Captain Carter or Major Farouk. Our best guess was that it’s some kind of cold fusion, at least during conventional flying. When it jumps… well, anybody’s guess. Branch thought maybe it utilized dark energy or dark matter.”

That was also what Farouk had speculated. Not useful. “When we arrive above HQ, initiate contact.”

“Yes, sir. But we don’t need to be right above them. There’s a range—you’ll remember that the Return contacted Monterey Base from space without knowing exactly where it was.”

Jason did remember—it was one of the few pieces of luck he’d had. What if the Return had instead made contact with New America? It could have happened that way. He said, “Proceed, Lieutenant. Martin, has HQ restored visual communication?”

“No, sir.” And then, in a sudden burst, “That should have been an easy patch. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been restored. A monkey could do it, sir.”

Allen began touching various protuberances. Only the one active wall screen told Jason that the ship moved; there was no sensation of motion. The screen showed Earth becoming larger again, its features more distinct. The Pacific Ocean, clouded out to sea and quite a way inland. Then mountains—how fast they were flying!—followed by desert. Somewhere down there, dead below the returning wilderness, lay deserted towns, ruined cities, overgrown farmland. However, in various places RSA survivors had banded together to form small settlements, mostly ranches and farms with a few towns that cannibalized industrial machinery. Those that managed to avoid New America’s troops were growing. The United States was building again.

In Colorado lay the radioactive ruin of Peterson Air Force Base and Cheyenne Mountain. The complex had been built to withstand a thirty-ton nuclear blast, an EMP, and airborne biological warfare. NORAD had held out for a long time, waging the deadly war that finished off what R. sporii avivirus had begun. But eventually personnel had had to emerge, and RSA had been waiting. Survival rate there had been less than 2 percent. Jason didn’t know what had happened after that; information from Fort Hood about NORAD had ceased three years ago.

Jason had never served at Fort Hood, which had once been one of the largest military installations in the world, home to two full combat divisions as well as various other commands. 55,000 troops had been stationed there, many being readied for deployment around the globe. The grounds had included the world’s biggest concentration of armored military vehicles: Abrams, Bradleys, Strykers. The air had been alive with Blackhawk copters on drill, with Apaches bristling with weapon mounts, with Chinooks like whales. There had been a live testing area for antitank guns and equipment. Just before the Collapse, three domes had been built at the southern end of the base, replacing the old administrative buildings.

The domes had survived. Nearly all of the rest was gone, although Jason knew that one entire dome still housed vehicles and rescued equipment. Much of the rest of Fort Hood’s 150,000 acres was reverting to wilderness, growing amid bombed wreckage. Desert scrub was almost impossible to kill.

“Yes, that’s Fort Hood,” Jason said. “Maintain high position over the fort, and open contact. They already know we’re here.”

“Yes, sir,” Allen said.

Jason prepared himself to face—metaphorically, anyway—General William Strople.

“Fort Hood, come in. This is the spaceship Return, US Army, Colonel Jason Jenner in command. Come in, Fort Hood.”

A startled young voice said, “This is Fort Hood.”

“Colonel Jenner wishes to talk to General Strople.”

“Access protocol, please.”

Jason gave the classified codes and waited. Five minutes later, Strople’s voice sounded on the bridge. They were a long five minutes. Jason dismissed everyone from the bridge except Lieutenant Allen. Finally Strople said, “Colonel Jenner?” Still no visual.

Jason said, “Yes, sir. I’m talking to you from the bridge of the spaceship Return. I’ve had it flown here because I suspect New America of instituting the recent attack on Monterey Base in order to lure personnel to the signal station to report to HQ. They could then follow, discover its new location, and destroy it.”

Silence. Jason could almost hear Strople thinking. Unease formed in Jason’s stomach.

“Very clever. However, Colonel Jenner, you have neglected to inform HQ that the spaceship can be flown over the planet in this manner. The only intel I have is that it landed near Monterey Base and has since been flown only back and forth to orbit.”

“Sir, I reported to General Hahn that the Return had been used to bomb New America after their attack on a farming settlement nearby. The ship has been contaminated with RSA.”

“I did not receive that information.”

What? Allen turned in his chair to throw Jason a wide-eyed look. If Hahn had not shared such vital intel with her next in command…

Strople seemed to realize his mistake. He covered it with an attack. “Colonel, you are reprimanded for not reporting vital war intelligence directly to me. A letter of reprimand will be included in your file. The weaponized spaceship is now classified as the property of HQ. Land it immediately.”

Jason pressed his lips together; his spine stiffened. Colleen Hahn had not trusted Strople with crucial intel. She had, supposedly, died of RSA, which no competent CO would risk contracting—and she had been very competent. Strople had jumped several ranks in too short a time. Information tech specialist Ruby Martin said that restoring visual should have been simple for HQ techs. Jason didn’t know what was going on at Fort Hood, but every instinct in him screamed that something here was very wrong. Right after the Collapse, there had been Army bases taken over by sheer force by ambitious survivors, as if the newly fragmented United States military were some South American dictatorship.

But he could not disobey an order.

However, if he landed the Return now, there was no guarantee that it would ever take him and his soldiers back to Monterey Base. Or if it did, Strople might send a higher-ranking officer with them to take command from Jason. Would that first-star general permit Colin’s misguided Settlers to stay at the base? How would HQ treat the four Worlders whose ship this was? Jason was well aware of the prejudice in some Army circles, including top brass, against Worlders. He had even heard, through Hillson, reports of ugly prejudice at Monterey Base.

But he could not disobey an order.

But… the Return technically didn’t belong to the Army at all. It was a World diplomatic vessel. Strople could not command it. Jason seized on this, even as he knew that he had commandeered the ship. Ka^graa, however, had not protested.

“Colonel Jenner?” Preemptory, threatening.

“I’m sorry, General, we’re having technical communications difficulties. Your last few sentences were badly garbled. Repeat, please.”

“I said the weaponized spaceship is now classified as the property of HQ. Land immediately.”

“We can’t, sir, I’m sorry. We’re speaking to you from orbit. The captain has explained to me that the ship—which, as you know, is of neither Terran nor World design—is preprogrammed to execute only two maneuvers: fly in orbit, as I am now, or else move laterally within only a hundred-mile radius of where it first landed. That seems to be a feature to conserve limited fuel.”

“Let me talk to the alien captain.”

“He does not speak English, sir. And the translator is not with us. She is ill.”

“RSA?”

“No, sir. Some… alien disease. Which is something else I need to report.”

“And you can’t land the ship here?”

“No, sir. Frankly, sir, we have very little control over the spaceship.”

Strople snarled, “Of all the ass-fucked operations… you are still reprimanded, Jenner.”

“Yes, sir. But about the alien disease, which may be a reason you wouldn’t want the Return to land here even if it could. We have a possible medical emergency at Monterey Base.”

“What kind of ‘possible medical emergency’? And don’t you know?”

Jason described the bear attack, McKay’s findings about anomalies in the victims’ brains, and the unexplained comas of not only Belok^ but also two Terran children at Monterey Base, and possibly Major Farouk. When he finished, Strople said, “So you think this thing might spread? That more of your people might fall into comas?”

“Medical personnel don’t know.”

“It appears you don’t know much, Colonel.”

“No, sir. But I haven’t yet reported”—because you gave me no chance—“the main reason I came here. New America has obtained and is flying F-35s. Three of them strafed Monterey Base.”

“Do you know where they came from or where they went?” In contrast to his previous utterances, Strople sounded neither surprised nor alarmed. Jason thought: He already knew. Was this somehow connected to the surprise visit of the two HQ captains to Monterey Base? To access ordnance, or form covert alliances?

Jason said, “No, sir, not for sure. But I think their likely airfield is Sierra Depot.”

“Casualties at Monterey?”

“None.”

“Do you know how many planes they have in total?”

“No. We observed three.”

“Keep me informed if you actually learn anything useful. About anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

“HQ out.”

Jason drew a deep breath. Allen gazed at him, waiting, face professionally impassive. Queasiness took Jason at the lies he had just told, but he would not have done anything differently. Nor did he owe his officers any explanation. Nonetheless, he said, “The Return is a World diplomatic vessel, under the command of Ka^graa.” Or possibly of Jane; Jason did not understand the whole lahk Mother system, which seemed insane to him. Jane was a young woman, not even military, and Ka^graa was her father.

“Yes, sir,” Allen said.

“Lieutenant, you will not repeat anything you just heard. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now take the Return back to Monterey Base.”

Whoever the hell the ship belonged to.

The Return set down at a different location from its previous landing and only long enough to drive off the FiVee, leaving aboard Allen, Martin, and Michaelson. The ship lifted to a safe orbit. The FiVee drove to the base without attack and through the armory airlock, where Farouk was loaded onto a gurney.

Lindy and an Army nurse waited just outside the armory. Immediately she bent over Farouk, examining him with the instruments always in her pockets. “How long ago did he lapse into the coma?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said. “Where’s Holbrook?”

“In surgery. One of the Settlement kids broke an arm falling off a crate. Nurse, have this patient taken to the v-coma ward.”

Jason said, “The what?”

“Virophage coma. We’ve got a dedicated ward now. Colonel Jenner, a word, please.”

She addressed him as CO, and she hadn’t rolled her eyes at meager medical intel about Farouk. Neither of those things boded well. Jason followed her to a temporarily vacant alcove formed of two properly installed walls and one large, empty, splintery crate smelling of beets.

“Jason, there is some bad news and I wanted to tell you myself. Your grandmother has fallen into the same sort of coma as the others. There are six now, with Dr. Farouk.”

His grandmother. Instantly a hundred memories flooded Jason: Grandma cutting his and Colin’s PB&J sandwiches into triangles and stars. Grandma taking him and Colin to hear a bridge make noises—although, of course, only Colin could hear that. Grandma teaching him and Colin about microbes, about mice, about ecology. The Marianne Jenner of his memories was much more real to him than the woman who had returned to Earth twenty-eight years later. Lindy knew all of Jason’s memories of his grandmother; he’d told her when they’d been married.

Which raised a whole other set of memories, especially when she took his hand.

“Jason, there isn’t reason yet to despair. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Marianne and the others may spontaneously come out their comas. There doesn’t seem to be any trauma.”

“Do you have the equipment to know what’s going on in her brain?”

“If you mean an MRI, no, we don’t. CAT scans are inconclusive. The base infirmary was never designed as a trauma center; you know that. The best thing we can do is a spinal tap to see what’s going on in the cerebral-spinal fluid. I need your permission for that, since you’re the next of kin.”

“Yes. Okay. Will you do the tap?”

“No, Holbrook will. He’s much more qualified. He’ll tap the others, too.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not very.”

“What can I do?” The moment he said it, Jason remembered Lindy’s charge against him: You always think you can control everything.

But she didn’t frown, or even drop his hand. “Nothing. Me, neither, not really. All we can do is wait while the virology team works. And hope there aren’t too many more headaches-cum-sleepiness that turn into comas. Jason—”

Now she did frown, but it didn’t look like disapproval—more like uncertainty.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She dropped his hand. “Now it’s all up to Zack McKay and his lab team.”

It must be a genetic variation. Had to be.

Zack stood with Susan by Caitlin’s bed in the curtained infirmary cubicle, one of a row of curtained cubicles holding v-comas. The curtains, made of some heavy material of an oppressive olive green, shut out light from the corridor. Under the dim overhead, Caity looked so small on the adult-sized bed with Bollers by her side, and so much like a healthy sleeping child instead a victim of a condition no one understood.

There must be a mutated allele, a genetic variation somewhere amid the fifteen million base-pair variations known to exist in the three-billion-pairs human genome. Maybe one of those fifteen million variations had occurred as a result of some human encounter with the virophage in the far distant past. The mutation had been passed along, a silent passenger until this child, Zack’s child, contracted the virophage. Then what? What genetic sequence had been triggered by the phage? And what was it doing to the brain of someone who had been affected in the womb by the ubiquitous R. sporii, but had never contracted RSA?

Because so far, that was their only clue. None of the coma victims was an RSA survivor. It was almost nothing to go on. They needed to run full-genome comparisons, ASAP.

Amy Parker, head nurse, entered the cubicle and turned up the light. “Major Holbrook will be here in a minute.”

Stupidly, Zack thought, I’d feel better if she called him Dr. Holbrook. But this was a military base, Holbrook was an Army doctor, Amy was Lieutenant Parker. And Zack was an ass.

When Holbrook arrived, Amy turned Caitlin over and held her, pulling up her gown to expose her delicate little back. He prodded the ridges of her spine and selected a spot between two lower vertebrae. After cleaning the spot, he inserted a long needle—Zack winced—and advanced it until clear fluid filled the syringe. The needle was withdrawn, Amy put a bandage on the spot, and the whole thing was over. Caity had not so much as changed her breathing pattern. Holbrook nodded and left for, presumably, the next v-coma.

Susan said, “I’ll stay. You need to get to work on those fluid samples.”

“I do, yes.”

Until answers were found, Lab Dome was Zack’s new home. He would live, sleep, work there, not leaving until this new horror was vanquished. “Will you—”

“I’ll send someone with your clothes and things. Bye, love.”

Zack set off for his lab at almost a run. But as he barreled into the room, Toni grabbed his arm. “Zack!”

“What is it?” Worse—from her face it was worse.

“Three new comas. Two are soldiers here in Lab Dome, and one of them is an RSA survivor.”

There went the only clue he had.

“Who are they? Do they bunk together?”

“Yes. Privates Lawrence Larriva and Mark Buckley. Both bunked with Mason Kandiss, that Army Ranger from the Return, so that’s the suspected transmission path.”

“Yes, probably. Who’s the third victim?”

Toni’s expression changed.

“Who? A civilian? One of our research team?”

“No.” Toni paused. “It’s the translator from World. Jane.”