Sanctuary (Jezebel's Ladder Book 3) (14 page)

When Alistair was rescued after many long hours, he was
relieved. His air wouldn’t have lasted much longer. The shuttle, however,
delivered him to a space station with armed Chinese men who tried to put him to
work. The Canadian officer responded with only name, rank, and serial number.

He sat cross-legged in a glorified
closet until one of the agents handed him a radio tuned to UN frequencies. His
eyes shot up when Professor Horvath explained the unsavory compromise to him.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, especially given how much you’ve done for moon base
already. You’ve saved countless lives. But with the new alliance, we need as
much water as you can salvage from up there, the construction ice in
particular.”

“It’s all interwoven with the steel
and the solar panels. It will take days to unravel all this,” Alistair
complained.

“We don’t have that long. Before
the next wave arrives, we have to bring the last shuttle back here and use it
to defend.”

“You mean the nukes are still in
flight?”

“Affirmative.”

“Damn idiots. There’s nothing left
to fight for; they’re just doing this for spite.” How could he save her and all
his people who’d been evacuated? “It’s a shame Mercy Smith didn’t stick around.
The very accident she was afraid of could save you.”

“What are you talking about?” asked
Nena Horvath. Several members of the command staff were hovering in the
background in the picture, obviously listening.

“She said if the fields got too
close, at the wrong resonance frequency, the weak atomic forces would kick in,
and the fields would fuse together like a molecule. The danger is only at start-up,
though.”

“Why would we want that?”

“Once it fuses, it’s much bigger
than the originals and a more stable valence something or other. Unfortunately,
you can’t shut it down by pulling the power plug.”

“Pretend I never took quantum
physics.”

“Sorry, boss. Here’s how Mercy
explained it to the managers—a three year old could understand the physics. Once
you blow up a balloon, two things can happen with the potential energy trapped
inside. Firstly, you can open your fingers, and the balloon will jet around the
room. That’s the effect our shuttles choose. Secondly, you could tie it closed
to give to your kid. Have you ever rubbed one of those balloons in your hair
and placed it against the wall?”

“Yeah,” Nena said with a snort. “Benny
taught Red to do that with everything. If the wall’s too rough, instead of
having a balloon Dachshund, you get a really loud bang. Everybody pees
themselves, draws a weapon, or both.”

“TMI, boss, but you get the analogy.
If you can avoid the bang, the static charge of the Icarus balloon will anchor
it in place on top of your headboard. You can use that nuke-proof barrier to
play peekaboo with parent Earth, and they can’t see you behind it.”

“How big is the combined radius?”

Alistair shrugged. “Um . . . her minimum
safety zone before she’d let us power the engines on was about a kilometer. So
I’d guess half that? You could stick the cluster about where the end of the
mining launcher sits, and Bob’s your uncle. Since the missiles coming at you
are all shortest-path ballistic, you’d be saved.”

Her face was priceless. “A-man, we’re
not paying you enough. You’re brilliant.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up
in a smile. “Thank you, sir. It’s a pity you can’t use Mercy’s shield idea.”

“I’m not so sure. Tech Specialist
Smith gave us very explicit instructions on what
not
to do—sort of like
Einstein warning Washington about atomic weapons in that famous letter. Only
she was a little more specific. She gave us the exact frequencies to avoid and
circled them on the start-up power curves.”

“Holy shit. But you don’t have
enough Icarus fields lying about, do you?”

“With the last shuttle and the
spares Fortune Aerospace shipped up for the Tetra experiments, we might. They’re
different types, but we have a room full of geniuses sitting around down here
who haven’t earned their paychecks this month. We have a chance.”

“Only if we get the ice and the
shuttle to you folks as soon as possible.”

“I thought you said that would take
too long?”

He scratched his facial stubble.
“How much swing do you have with our Asian friends?”

“If they don’t cooperate, I can
kick their butts out into vacuum. Of course, the folks up there would do the
same to you. What do you need?”

“Ask them if they have any more of
those nasty robots that took apart my lasers. Each of those robots could mine
your water faster than a dozen people.”

“I’ll see what we can do. Horvath
out.”

The Chinese officer who’d handed
him the radio said, “You know they can’t evacuate us all
and
get the
water back in time.”

“I know,” Alistair said. Anyone not
on the shuttle crew was probably dead.

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

“She has enough on her mind right
now.”

“You could’ve bargained for a
ride.”

“It’s going to come down to
minutes, either way. My greed and delaying might get everyone killed.”

“So, after the robots do their job,
we should have a final party?”

“Yep. If you got ’em, smoke ’em. I
wouldn’t save anything for the weekend.”

****

Incognito, Corporal Ye sat in the
food court of the mall at the base of the Tokyo skyscraper. He enjoyed a
cinnamon bun the size of his face and a coffee from Sri Lanka. Even though he’d
only had the assignment four days, being liaison was a great job. The man next
to him had clothes that screamed Party Political Officer. The man glared at Ye
with every bit of bun he nibbled and every short-skirted girl he waved at. The
crowds were loud, but he could still hear the bubblegum music well enough to
bob his head in time. When people walked by dressed in T-shirts advertizing
Sojiro’s Manga, Ye laughed at the irony. The Chinese army was chasing the very
group these teens were now idolizing.

“Why are we in this shrine to
excess?” complained Comrade Shih.

Ye shrugged. “Mori will only deal
with me. He doesn’t trust you or your men, so we meet in public. No one gets
hurt, and everybody’s happy. I think I might try a sample of that chocolate
milkshake.

“Sit, you fool!”

“Is something wrong, honored sir?”

“He’s late.”

“No. His wife passed through the
level above ours three minutes ago. She should finish her sweep in another two—once
she locates all your snipers. After the kidnapping attempt, he is understandably
reluctant to trust us.” He gave Shih a crooked smile.

The political officer paced,
holding a cell phone in his left hand.

When Ye saw the chocolate shake in
Mori’s extended hand, he knew that Mori’s people had been eavesdropping the
whole time, and corporate security had a complete dossier on each man. “Thank
you, Mori-san,” Ye said, bowing and holding out his hand to accept the gift.

Shih smacked the bribe out of the
corporal’s hand, splattering Ye’s shoes and the potted plant beside him.
“Enough. He is not your lapdog. You have kept us waiting long enough.”

Mori, unruffled, said, “A minute
only. I thought the good corporal—”

“One hundred hours have elapsed since
the landing. You promised to place one of our agents on the alien craft.”

“Be reasonable. I promised to do
everything in my power to help you achieve that goal, and I have. I gave you
half the shuttles in my fleet. I used information from the alien telescope to
provide you with continual updates. Your people shuttling water know all about alien,
superdense-ice construction techniques now. When I shared my agent’s picture of
the subspace routing device and their access point, I advanced your space
program by centuries.”

“Unless you stop them, the crew of
the
Tetra
will escape through the Saturn anomaly.”

Rigid from being cut off rudely
several times, Mori explained, “I can’t make the alien craft go any slower.
Perhaps if a few of your men jumped out, a shuttle with lower mass could speed
up enough to catch them in the next couple days.”

“You leave me no choice.” Shih
dialed the phone. “Is this Japanese National Defense? I am an officer with
Chinese Intelligence. We have tracked number seven on your terrorist watch
list. My agents followed him aboard a Tokyo train minutes ago—the one that
travels through Mori Research Plaza. Yes, I’ll hold.”

Turning to Mori, Shih said, “This
is to remind you to keep your word.”

Through the three-story wall of
clear glass, the entire food court saw the blinding flash in the east. After
the column of white came the storm of razor-sharp glass blowing inward. People
ducked and screamed. Men ran from behind the food counters to surround Shih.
Stunned, he said, “It wasn’t supposed to be that big.”

The explosion eliminated most of
the research site, detonating supplies like oxygen, acetylene, and fuel storage
in a fireball just shy of nuclear. Preliminary estimates came in at a thousand
dead, and many times that injured.

****

While her friend Yuki was on bubble
watch near the snowflake, keeping an eye on the pursuing shuttle, Mercy glared
angrily at the doctor’s cabin door, her hands stuffed deep into her lab-coat
pockets. “Any news from Garden Hollow while I was confined to my room by the
Gestapo?”

Yuki sighed. “All dull. They’re
convinced that the swamp is used to return elements back to the entire
ecosystem, so Herk named it ‘Recycling Swamp.’ I heard all about gathering
human nitrate for fertilizer.” She made a gagging gesture. “Today, they’ve
expanded food gathering to tomatoes, sample grains, and algae.”

“Sample grains?”

“Oh, yeah. The vegetables are
fairly available, but only about 5 percent of the fruits and grains are
harvestable this week. The rest we’re preserving for replanting. Tomorrow, the
hunt expands to something they call a mod-pheasant. Rachael is hoping to
domesticate the species, breed, and collect eggs. Everyone else is hoping for
barbeque and something to eat all the bugs.”

“I thought there were no birds.”

“None that fly.”

At the same instant that the lab in
Tokyo ignited, the paired-quantum photo cartridge transmitted the same level
of energy across the link. The millions of superheated particles exploded
outward from Yuki’s left shoulder pocket, just above the elbow. She had no way
of knowing what had happened, but a scream tore from deep inside her.

Mercy could smell burning flesh. Without
thinking, she removed her own jacket and knotted the sleeves above the gushing
wound. Pale-faced, Mercy noted shrapnel pieces in her friend’s neck, jaw, and
breast. Blood globules spurted away to dance around the room.

“Auckland!” Mercy keened as she pulled
out her multi-tool, useful for wire stripping and screw tightening. The
engineer snapped out a tiny blade, moved her friend’s hand, and cut the
shredded jumpsuit sleeve away so the doctor would be able to save Yuki. Hearing
her friend’s panicked runaway-train panting and seeing her wild eyes, Mercy
said, “Shh . . . he’ll know what to do. We’re going to take care of you.”

Popping his head from his bedroom,
the groggy doctor mumbled, “What?”

Seeing modest Mercy with bare arms
was his first indication that something was dangerously wrong. The red mist
hovering around her hands caused him to launch across the room. “How did it
happen?”

“I don’t know. She had her quantum camera
in there.”

The doctor ordered, “Hold her arm
tightly
.
Give me your pliers. Have they touched anything since decontamination?”

“No.”

Removing the biggest shard, he
gaped at the improbable wound. The reddening of the skin was still expanding.
Yuki’s face was a rictus of pain as she tried to claw at the injury. He held
her right arm back as he shouted, “Lou. Cold packs. Park! Bring my bag with the
morphine, and then get the surgical box. I need every sterile clamp and sponge
we have.”

Red shouted, “Mercy, there’s smoke
coming from your room.”

“You check on it. I’m holding Yuki
together.”

Auckland cursed the blood mist.
“Help me drag Yuki into the kitchen.”

Red flew to the single girl’s dorm.
“Someone’s luggage is on fire.” They heard beating, following by a hiss.
“Sorry, toothpaste and food goo splattered over everything.”

“I’ll help you take the bag down to
the showers to clean it off,” said Zeiss. “We need to find out what caused
this.”

Meanwhile, Auckland gave Yuki pain
medication to knock her out while the others strapped her securely to the
table. While waiting for the ice pack to slow the burn progress and encourage
clotting, he patched the obvious bleeders. Mercy did little more than hold the
woman’s hand.

When the patient was stabilized, Auckland confessed, “Whatever it was cooked her bicep and half the tissue around your lab
coat. In another two months, I might be able to operate and save this arm.
Right now, it’s such a bloody mess I’m not sure if she’d survive an
amputation.”

Red came back up from the cleansing
tubes. “Um . . . every part of the magic Mori camera melted down.”

“Thank God she wasn’t snapping
another photo at the time, or carrying the equipment in her chest or hip pocket,”
Mercy said.

“Spontaneous combustion?” asked the
doctor.

“Z says all the camera components
melting at once probably means a two-way quantum transfer of heat energy from Tokyo.”

“Another bloody atomic bomb?” Lou asked.

Hyperventilating at the possibility
of over thirteen million deaths in his homeland, Sojiro tried to drop to the
floor to avoid fainting. In zero g, however, his feet slowly floated off the
floor, and he ended up staring at the ceiling.