Final Assault (7 page)

He bit his lower lip. He wanted to say to her that keeping secrets wasn’t productive, that this time it was the humans against the aliens, not the U.S. against some other country. But he didn’t. He’d had that fight with Maddox before—countless times—and it had done no good.

She looked at him for a long moment, as if expecting him to make the same old tired argument. When he didn’t, she said, “Unless anyone has anything to add, I’d like to close this meeting. As I said before, we’ll deal with details outside of this structure. Does anyone have anything major they’d like to say?”

There was a moment of silence. Maddox again looked at Cross. He would talk to her about the secrecy in private.

“Well, then,” Maddox said. “There is only one more thing I need to discuss.”

She paused, it seemed, for dramatic effect.

“This will be the last meeting of the Tenth Planet Project.”

So that was why she had been looking at Cross. She had been preparing herself for his reaction. “This is the wrong time to break up the Project,” he said. “We need the consortium of minds and information—”

“1 know, Dr. Cross.” Maddox smiled. “The problem is that we no longer have the luxury of time. These meetings take hours that I don’t have and neither does anyone else on this extended team. Besides, with the unrest all over the world, getting together is taking longer and is less productive.”

“But—”

“Let me finish,” Maddox said.

He could have sworn her eyes twinkled. She had presented that news this way just to get him riled. He had been manipulated, and he was trying not to be angry about it.

“I agree that continuing to coordinate information from scientists and leaders from all over the world is important. I believe that it is crucial in these next twenty-nine days. But I think we must avail ourselves of technology and stop relying on face-to-face meetings. Instead, I think we need to work without such a rigorous meeting schedule.”

Her words quieted Cross.

“What I would like to do is this.” Again, she paused. She was tormenting him, and getting some enjoyment out of it. He hadn’t realized that she actually liked sparring with him. “Dr. Cross, I want you to coordinate all of the information through this Tenth Planet Group, make sure each of us remains informed, and keep all of the channels open so that we are perhaps
more
informed than we’ve been.”

Cross frowned. “I have good equipment, but it’s not up to this many satellite links and—”

“I know,” Maddox said. “That’s why I’ve arranged for you to work out of the communications section of STScI’s lab. Offices will be cleared for you by this afternoon, and additional equipment is already there. We have several assistants lined up to help you, although we know you’ll want to bring in some of your own.” He was feeling railroaded and he wanted to protest, but he didn’t. She was giving him what he had been asking for all along. Free-flowing information. Even more free-flowing than it had been. And he was going to coordinate it all.

“All right,” Cross said. “How much setup will this take?”

“Most of it has already been done,” Maddox said. “All of you should find e-mail in your links telling you how to stay in contact.”

Britt squeezed Cross’s hand. “At least we’ll be in the same area now,” she whispered.

He glanced at her. Had she known about these plans and not told him? He felt a flare of anger, then set it aside. He didn’t like being out of the loop, and that was what he was reacting to. It wasn’t Britt’s fault. And Maddox was right. This was the best for all of them. Cross had taken a couple of much needed hours just to get to the meeting, and the meeting itself was taking a lot of time. He could speed up this process considerably.

“Now I am going to officially call an end to this last face-to-face meeting of the Tenth Planet Project.” Maddox seemed to make eye contact with everyone on the screens as well as at the table. “Humankind has a great chance of surviving this war because of the work of everyone here. I, for one, am proud to be a part of this team.”

She smiled at him, then went on. “I hope you will all avail yourselves of the new methods of communication. I expect to be hearing about all of your work regularly. And I hope that when we meet again, face to face, it will be for a worldwide victory celebration.”

She slapped her hands on the table. “Meeting adjourned.”

One by one the screens winked out.

Maddox stood. She started for the door, but Cross caught her arm.

“You blindsided me,” he said.

“You’re the one who wanted freer communication,” she said.

“And I think it’ll work,” he said. “I think it’s the right decision.”

Her features softened just a bit. “Yet you’re complaining.”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

He glanced at the others, making the look obvious, so that Maddox knew what he said was just for her. The remaining members of the Project were talking to Portia.

“There is one question that I have for you,” Cross said. “You alluded to something twice in this meeting. First you said, ‘Let me tell you what I can of our military plans.’ This implies that there are plans you can’t tell us about. And secondly, you dodged my question about other forms of attack. Why are you keeping secrets, General?”

Her smile faded. “Dr. Cross, it’s always been military policy to keep things close to the chest.”

“I know that,” he said. “But this time things are different. We’re not fighting other humans who are trying to discover our strategy and tactics. We’re fighting creatures we’ve never seen before.”

“I know,” she said. “But the art of war is an ancient one. And it has always been contingent on secrets. We don’t make decisions by committee in the military. All I can tell you is that we have other plans in the works. I am not at liberty to tell you—or anyone else here— what they are. Most of my direct subordinates don’t know either.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to let us know?”

She shook her head. “We don’t have systems in place for that sort of thing, and we don’t have time to invent them. It’s better to use tradition. The systems are in place and take no thought to implement. Right now, I’m staring down the barrel of a gun that will go off in exactly twenty-nine days. If I can carve out extra time in those twenty-nine days and not jeopardize our mission, I will. That includes using old methods because they already exist. It includes dissolving as many formal meetings as I can—not just with the Project, but with my own staff and others.”

Her blue eyes were steely. Cross had never met anyone with such power in her gaze.

“I’ll be honest with you, Dr. Cross. We have to cram months of work into the next few weeks. We can do it if we work at peak efficiency and on very little sleep. If we miss by so much as a hair, we lose. And I hate to lose”

“I don’t think losing is an option, General.” “Neither do I, Dr. Cross,” she said. “That’s why I’ve gone to so much trouble to continue this group. You’re going to run it now, Dr. Cross. No secrets, except the ones that someone chooses to withhold from you. Let the information flow.”

He smiled.

“But don’t waste my time having me read memos or getting redundant e-mail or watching dull vids. Boil it down, pass it on to the right parties, keep us all informed, but in a way that speeds things up rather than slows them down. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” She nodded and started to walk away, then stopped as if she had another thought. “You do realize, Dr. Cross, why I put you in charge.”

“To keep me out of trouble?” he joked.

She shook her head. “You’re probably the only person in this entire project, perhaps the only person I’ve ever met, who can understand, coordinate, and communicate all of the various information that will flow from these people. I hope that you’ll keep an open mind. I will. If one of your trademark hunches flows logically from this information, share it with me. I’ll make sure you’ll be heard.”

Then she turned her back on him and left.

He watched the door close behind her. The shaded glass walls shimmered. He had been feeling the urgency of the aliens’ arrival before, but now it seemed heightened.

And somehow, with Maddox’s last minute charge, he felt as if the fate of the world rested on his shoulders.

October 12, 2018
9:22 a.m. Central Daylight Time

29 Days Until Second Harvest

Kara’s feet hurt. At dawn, she had walked to the Loop, hoping to find a train that would take her somewhere close to home. All she had wanted to do was get on the Red Line, or even the Purple Line. The Red had an extension all the way to Lake Forest. It was the line she had taken the night before, before everything got crazy.

But it hadn’t happened.

She had arrived to find the entire downtown section, from the Daley Center to the Sears Tower, filled with broken glass, destroyed cars, and small fires. Not many rioters were still active, although there was a lot of looting going on.

She had walked the filthy concrete stairs up to the El at the first station she saw. It was on the corner of Washington and Dearborn. But as she peeked over the top, she realized she didn’t want to go any farther.

A train was askew on the tracks, doors open, the interior destroyed. No one was on the platform, and the eerie emptiness terrified her. She couldn’t even hear the rumble of a far-off train.

The booth had been knocked over, the electronic turnstiles destroyed.

At that moment, she had realized she wasn’t taking an El home, and she’d started to shake.

She wasn’t going to cry. She had survived so far. She wasn’t going to let this get to her.

And she hadn’t.

She was walking through the mess down Randolph to Lake Michigan. Lake Forest was on the lake—more than forty miles away, but on the lake—and she would walk it if she had to.

She was tired and cold and hungry. She had never spent a night outdoors before—not without a tent or family or friends. Sometime around midnight, she had crawled down some steps that led to a boarded-up door and wedged herself as far against the stone wall as possible. The sidewalk was above her, and from it she could hear the screams and shouts of people as they ran by.

The sounds of breaking glass faded, though, as the night went on—probably because there were few windows left. And the voices died down as the looting ceased. Once, she thought she caught the acrid scent of smoke, and she peeked out of her hiding place, afraid that the fire was nearby.

A car, upside down, its wheels moving like the feet of an upended turtle, had a fire on its undercarriage. But the flames hadn’t looked like they’d spread, and she had eased back into her hiding place.

She knew she had slept, but that was only because she had bounced awake as her head slipped against the stone. Her dreams had been as bad as the night around her.

She had tried everything. She had searched for a cab, waited for the bus, and tried to get into some of the nearby hotels. The hotels had locked their doors. No people could get in and no guests could get out. She had pounded and screamed, and once, a security guard had come to the door. All he had done was tell her to go away.

Finally, when she’d found her safe place at the bottom of the stairs, she had used her wrist’puter to call her father. He had answered on the first ring, relief so deep in his voice when he realized it was her that it took her a moment to tell him what was happening.

She hadn’t realized how worried he would be. She had thought he wouldn’t even know she was gone. Her mother’s voice had echoed in the background, also worried.

Kara had told her father where she was, what had happened, and had urged him to get her. He had promised he would be there within the hour. But a half an hour later her ’puter vibrated against her wrist. She answered.

Her father was on the line. The roads were closed into the city. The police had formed barricades. He had been told he could go around them if he dared, but most people who did had their cars hijacked or worse.

He asked if she was all right and if she was in a safe place. She didn’t know how to answer him. Finally she told him she was as safe as she could be.

He wasn’t satisfied. He offered to have her go to one of his colleagues’ condos on Lake Shore Drive, but she told him she was afraid to walk there. She was also afraid that the building would be closed, just like the hotels were. Still, he made her take his friend’s name and address in case she had to leave her spot.

Her father offered to stay on the link all night, to keep her company, but his voice made her weepy and fearful. She was better off on her own, or so she had told him. When he finally hung up, she almost dialed him back, but didn’t let herself. She had to get through the night on her own.

And now she had.

When she had walked to the Loop at dawn it was with the hope that the trains were repaired. All night she had heard gunshots, but the worst of the rioting had eased. As she walked, she still saw looters, but they didn’t care about her.

No one seemed to care about her, now that she was grubby and filthy. She kept her sleeve buttoned over her wrist’puter, her only link to the real world, and she had stuffed her earrings and necklace in her pockets. She looked like any other street kid out to get into trouble, or so she hoped.