The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) (19 page)

“It is a concern, but it has so far been largely confined to
two groups: postadolescents and heavy consumers of alcoholic beverages.”

“But some change in circumstance must have preceded this,”
Shen insisted.

“These things fluctuate with hours of daylight, the weather,
even the rate in which we detect alcohol being distilled.”

“And it may fluctuate with new beliefs about the guerrillas
and their capabilities,” Shen said.

“True,” Wong allowed.

Xie pressed a button on his handheld, and the whine from the
air conditioner grew louder.

“It was a genuine offer, more or less,” the general said,
more to himself than his officers. “We would have interred the soldiers, of
course, but we would have let the civilians return to American space. No need
for them to suffer any more.”

“Sir?” Wong and Shen said together.

“Shen, prepare briefings for our combat officers about what
they may expect at the primary and secondary bases. The Americans aren’t
surrendering; they are dispersing. We need to hit them before too many of them
melt back into the countryside.”

Combat Supply Cache Falcon, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin

Luhai-
class destroyer 0402
was almost an old friend, now, its orbit so well-known to Rand, Aguirre and
Lopez that they could pick it out of the sky without the assistance of the
telescope. Indeed, they had a running joke in which it showed up and
contributed to their conversation.

And there it was. “Geeeentlemen, gooood to see you dis
evening,” Rand said in a silly voice one might use when filling in dialogue for
his dog. “Do you perhaps happen to have any … mayonnaise?”

Lopez and Aguirre chuckled. It was Aguirre’s regular
nighttime watch at the mouth of the cave, and Lopez and Rand had come out to
shoot the breeze. Aguirre squinted into the scope’s eyepiece.

“Shit! Captain, her nose is pointed right at us! Her forward
shutters are open!”

Here it comes. Two days early, the distrustful bastards.
At least we got some of the guys out.
“How long do we have?”

“They could fire now, but we’ve got probably ten minutes
until they’ll be at an optimum angle to hit us in the green.”

“Look at that!” Lopez pointed at the sky. Several points of
light had brightened: more orbiting warships, lighting their candles to move
into a better firing position.

“They’ll have launched missiles from the other side of the
planet,” Aguirre said. “Sir, we really don’t have much time.”

Rand called DiMarco and got no response, so he tried Major
Cruz, who answered after several seconds.

“Ma’am, we’re about to be bombarded from space. We need to
evacuate everyone.”

“Are you sure?” She sounded groggy.

“Yes, dammit! In ten minutes, this place will be a smoking
hole! You’ve got to run, now!” He cut the connection, ran to the edge of the
cave entrance, and shouted for the sentries down below to climb out.

“Get under the trees! As far from here as you can! Run, you
motherfuckers! Run!” His voice was primal and raw.

Ants,
General Xie thought, watching the video feed
from one of the orbiting warships.
They look like ants.
Somehow the
Americans had deduced an attack was imminent and were boiling up from the cave
mouth to flee their primary base.
Damn the Navy! They promised me surprise.

The ships saw the activity as well; Admiral Kong abandoned
his plan to wait for the missiles to land, and he ordered the ships to employ
laser strikes on the soldiers appearing at the mouth of the cave.

Fire from the sky.
Where the beams touched,
vegetation combusted and soldiers died. Xie heard laser officers on the
communication net laughing as they selected individual soldiers to hit.

After a few minutes, the missile warheads arrived, and the
entire site was obscured by a cloud of dust and debris.

Shiva Orbital Platform, Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

The Indians, congenial as they were, couldn’t quite hide
that the interview was in fact an interrogation. They asked Donovan to tell the
story of the Chinese anti-laser rocket again, this time, no doubt, with lie
detector software monitoring him.

Donovan endured the polite questioning and Ramesh’s
apologies with nods, smiles and sips of tea. It was easier to agree to the
fiction that this was a simple talk among friendly people, and he didn’t blame
the Indians for wanting to be certain.

When he was finally led in to meet with Tyag Bahadar Singh,
the general said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mister Donovan.
We would have invited Senator Gregory, but his movements are too public, and we
don’t want to tip off the opposition to what is going to happen.”

“What is going to happen, General?”

“Many things are in motion, but I suspect you’ll have your
alliance in the near future,” he said. “It is a funny thing. We have found
other weapons in the Punjab that also appear to have been supplied by the
Chinese, although yours was the first. However, our spies in Beijing are giving
us every indication the Chinese wish to avoid a conflict with us, and it is
very, very foolish of them to risk antagonizing us for such a limited gain,
while they pressed in so many other places. The Chinese are not led by foolish
people.”

“Perhaps they expect you would attack them anyway, and they
seek to tie up your forces fighting the insurgency,” Donovan said.

“Perhaps,” Singh said. “In any event, we are antagonized,
Mister Donovan. Within the hour, Prime Minister Varalakshmi will be going to
the public and claiming she has evidence of Chinese intervention in the Punjab.
It will inflame the people.”

“And guarantee her re-election later this year,” Ramesh
said.

“Indeed. Her opponents would like to see me replaced, so I
cannot see her continuing in power as a bad thing,” Singh said. “In any event,
Mister Donovan, I am forced to respond. A short time ago, I gave orders for our
forces in Arundal Pradesh and Aksai Chin to begin occupying our fortifications
in the Himalayas. Very likely, we will have our little war with the Hans, and
soon.”

“My government will be very happy to hear that, General,”
Donovan said. “We should arrange lines of communication, so we can coordinate
our activities. Intelligence-sharing, orbital bombardment, space facilities – ”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware of your fleet’s desperate need for
maintenance and repair assistance. Those are certainly matters we can work out
in the near future. For now, we will focus on our vulnerable borders with
China. Good day, Mister Donovan.”

The news broke while Donovan was on the jumper to the LEO
transfer station.

RUSSIA DECLARES WAR ON CHINA, KOREA, MYANMAR AND SUMATRA;
MASLOV PROPOSES FORMAL ALLIANCE WITH JAPAN AND USA

The Indians and the Russians. We didn’t get the
Europeans, but maybe it will be enough to persuade China to seek a peace.

He messaged carefully worded congratulations to Gardiner
Fairchild. Fairchild’s response indicated he apparently trusted the NSS’
encryption a good deal more than Donovan did:

JD – PRESIDENT MASLOV
CALLED DELGADO AND KATSURA THIS MORNING TO OFFER AN ALLIANCE, EVEN ASKED IF
82ND WOULD BE AVAILABLE TO DEPLOY IN SIBERIA IN TWO MONTHS. RUSSIAN FLEET IS
LIGHTING UP. WILL JOIN YOU AT SPACE COMMAND IN 24 HOURS. I SUSPECT WE’LL BE
HEADING OUT WITH A TASK FORCE. GF

More time out here,
Donovan thought.
I guess I
won’t make it to Jacob’s birthday after all.

WASHINGTON – A bitterly divided House of
Representatives narrowly passed a measure that would relax restrictions on
certain genetic improvements, notably ones that would enable increased physical
strength and endurance and would overwrite a gene complex associated with more
than half of diagnosed cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Critics,
including several religious groups, decried what they saw as a break with
longstanding law and practice that genetic modifications should only correct
clear deficiencies rather than offer enhancements, with one opponent describing
the measure as “the militarization of America’s genetic legacy.” Supporters of
the bill defended it as “a purely optional way for parents to ensure their
children are physically and mentally healthy throughout their lives,” and noted
that China, Japan and Korea all have had looser restrictions on such
modifications for generations.

USS Valley Forge, 11 Leonis Minoris

Valley Forge
was a destroyer of the
Lexington
class,
suited for operations independent of large fleets. As such, her crew had
developed a “lone wolf” swagger relative to other crews in the Space Force, and
certain institutional knowledge about how to get along with outsiders had
atrophied. Thus the impending arrival of a flag officer – from the
Army,
no
less – forced a hurried review of the regs and a series of inquiries about that
officer’s preferences on the soon-to-depart
Vincennes,
his former home
for overseeing the resistance on distant Kuan Yin. But the bosun’s whistle had
been located and practiced with, and a detail of starboys was summoned to
render honors.

So it was something of an anticlimax when Brigadier General
Rev Grogan launched himself too strongly from
Valley Forge’s
jumper into
the shuttlebay, flying past the salutes with only a quick motion to his
forehead to return them. Apparently, he had forgotten about the ferrous strip
embedded in the floor, or he didn’t care to bother with simulating Earthside
normality. As he passed, Captain Grace Mallett quickly launched herself beside
him, maneuvering through freefall with the agility of an old spacehand. As they
pulled through the hatch to the ship’s main shaft, Mallett reached behind
herself to give a surreptitious “come on!” wave to Lieutenant (j.g.) Erin
Quintana and the other two officers who had attended Grogan’s arrival.

They had expected Grogan to go to his quarters, so the
section of the ship’s central shaft connecting the shuttlebay to that area had
been cleared. But Grogan said “Briefing room,” and the entourage instead flew
into the forward section of the ship, forcing several surprised astronauts to
flatten themselves against the shaft’s concave wall while they passed.

Once they reached the briefing room and were seated, a
half-dozen other ships’ officers in work uniforms hurried in, summoned from
various tasks to meet the general.

Erin looked at him closely. Rev Grogan had deep blue eyes
set in a weathered, spare face. His brown hair was cut even shorter than the
regs required for space, and his thin lips were pressed together in a perpetual
small frown. He wore the “tower of power” – Special Forces, Ranger and
Spaceborne tabs on his left shoulder.

The man who wouldn’t save Mom and Dad
, Erin thought.

“Captain,” Grogan began, “what are you going to do about
those three Chinese destroyers that are now one week away?”

Mallett cleared her throat. “For the moment, sir, we’re
going to see if our arrival in the system spooks them into turning away.”

“Why would they? Captain Dominguez on
Vincennes
said
even with
Valley Forge
present, the simulations put our chance of
victory over the Chinese force at less than thirty percent.”

“That’s true,” Mallett said. “But we think they don’t know
what else we’ve got through keyhole in Golf Juliet Eleven-Nineteen –”

“—which is nothing but a remass tanker –”

“—so they may fear an ambush from the other side once they
get close. They’re still decelerating toward us, but they’ve increased thrust,
so they’ll stop more than a hundred thousand klicks away,” the captain
finished.

“And when they decide to come after us anyway?”

“We’ll exit this system through the keyhole and hit them if
they are stupid enough to follow us through.”

The general leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “That
doesn’t do me any good, Captain Mallett. I urgently need to reestablish direct
contact with my forces on Kuan Yin. Being on the other side of the keyhole
denies me that.
Vincennes
will have to stay.”

Mallett shook her head. “I can assure you that won’t happen.
She fought in our first attempt to retake Kuan Yin and hasn’t been home since.
She’s beyond the point where she’s losing effectiveness as a fighting ship, and
she needs the kind of maintenance you can only get at a big station. She’s
going home. But we won’t need her, if we’re defending the keyhole from the
other side.”

“Then I’ll have to insist more ships from the
Spruance
task
force come here to protect you.”

That won’t happen, either,
Erin thought.
Spruance
and
her consorts were one system upstream, more than a week’s travel time distant.
Admiral Vega’s force had been borrowed from, and borrowed from again, and was
now down to a dozen fighting craft. He wouldn’t split up that meager force to
support a mission that many in Space Force believed would amount to nothing:
coordinating with what was left of the 9th Infantry Division, the Army unit
that had been overrun when China took over the American colony on Kuan Yin
after the war started.

The room was silent for a moment. Everyone was aware of
Grogan and Mallett’s disparity in rank, and Grogan knew he was arguing not with
another person, but with Space Force, its policies and decisions already made
on Earth.
He’s trying to win us over,
Erin realized.
He needs us to
believe in the mission.

He would not get such loyalty from her, not ever.

Mallett said, “In the meantime, here’s the best I can do. If
those destroyers approach,
Valley Forge
can engage with our entire load
of missiles at extreme range. We’re a strong standoff-range fighter, and we
might be able to disable them at that distance. If we can’t, I will be compelled
to withdraw through the keyhole, General.”

Grogan nodded, said nothing.

An alert chime issued through everyone’s handheld save that
of Grogan, who had not yet logged into the ship’s network. The voice of the
on-duty sensor tech in CIC followed.

“Warning, warning. Multiple military-grade drive flares
detected around Kuan Yin.”

Captain Mallett thumbed her handheld. “Interplanetary
trajectory?”

“Wait one, sir,” came the reply. An officer slaved the
briefing room’s screen to the sensor tech’s console, but otherwise no one
moved. On the display, little red dots around Kuan Yin grew into long
streamers, marking Chinese warships under thrust.

The lines on General Grogan’s face seemed to deepen. “If
they’re sending the fleet after us, there’s no way we can remain in the
system.”

Finally, the sensor tech said, “Negative. The ships appear
to be heading toward the Golf-Juliet-Eleven-Thirty-Four keyhole.”

“They’re withdrawing to Chinese space,” Mallett said. “How
many?”

“I count seventeen ships, sir.”

“That’s nearly half their force!”
Valley Forge’s
XO
said. “They’re leaving Kuan Yin vulnerable for the first time in a year. That’s
why they sent the three destroyers to chase
Vincennes
off, so we
wouldn’t see this. We need to alert Admiral Vega, right now.”

“What if they are withdrawing to just behind the keyhole,
trying to draw one of our fleets too close to the planet and hitting us from
two sides?” Erin asked.

Valley Forge’
s intelligence officer shook his head
and pointed at the screen. “Some of those markers are battalion transports, and
their mass readings show they are running fully loaded. By my count, they’re
pulling out two full brigades and one of their aircraft carriers. That’s a huge
operation; they could set the same trap but leave the troops on the ground. No
way to ever be certain, but that looks like a legitimate long-haul fleet
movement.”

At that, General Grogan leaned back in his chair and clasped
his hands together. Ever so briefly, he smiled.

San José, Republic of Tecolote, Entente

One by one, a series of seagulls alighted on the black
sail of the British submarine, moored in the military section of San José’s
port.
HMS Hibernia
was a mothership, a crewed command vessel that
managed hundreds of underwater drones, collectively capable of guarding a whole
swath of ocean against incursion. Her sister,
Caledonia,
was already at
sea, her drones probing Han deep defenses off Huashan.

While
Hibernia
’s modern and menacing lines were the
most visible marker of the new alliance, Neil also recognized subtler evidence
of the assistance of Tecolote’s new friends. The great cranes of the port were
offloading several brand-new yellow Caterpillar robodiggers from a freighter,
and they were easily the most advanced construction vehicles on the island.
They would first be used in building a large base to house allied forces, and
then they would be turned over to Tecolote’s government for their own uses.

Also off the freighter were a series of brown shipping
containers, unremarkable except for the extended series of warnings printed on
them: no open flames, no exposure to seawater, and for gawd’s sake no dropping
the container. Inside was the second shipment of General Vargas’ long-sought
artillery rockets, which would see rapid use as he launched his offensive
against the rebels in the northern highlands. He had already used up the first
batch, wiping out a coastal town that he announced was an enemy stronghold.

Allied personnel were also coming, but that would take
longer. Advance units from the British and Australian armies would be arriving
to survey the situation first, as the American presence on Entente was still
limited. The Seabees would transfer from Ardoyne within the month.

So Neil had been busy in the last several weeks, but the
work was not terribly challenging: meetings with Tecolote officials, remote
conferences with allied officers, and lots of hanging out at the port,
inventorying arriving materiel. He hadn’t seen Das in some time, and he had to
keep putting off another fishing excursion with Tippy. At last Jessica was
trying to arrange a trip down to see him.

Kitsune was gone, departed on an orbital launch for Rubin
Station in Entente’s LEO. That was usually a jumping off point for higher
orbits, and commercial stations that hosted ships leaving for other planets. She
didn’t say what was next for her, only that she would be in touch again.

And Irene Gomez –
Irene Sato,
Neil corrected himself
– had vanished. She had not returned to the consulate, and they had not spoken.
Paul Layton, the chargé d’affaires, claimed not to know what had happened to
her. Not knowing what else to do, Neil had fired off a long, carefully-worded report
about her behavior to the NSS counterintelligence and received a form-letter acknowledgement
in return.

His handheld alerted him to a yet another call from
Commander Raleigh.

“Go ahead, sir.”

“New orders. Get back to the
Apache
as soon as you
can. She’s taking on supplies and will depart orbit in about three days.”

“Sir?”

“I’ll be there in twelve hours. Can’t say more, but things
are moving. The Brits will be taking the lead in Tecolote for the time being,
and
Apache
is needed elsewhere.”

Back to the ship. Back to Howell, weighing almost nothing
and turning tricks in CIC.

And back to Jessica.

United States Space Command, Kitsinger Station, Geosynchronous
Earth Orbit

The auditorium was the largest room in Kitsinger, big
enough that it reflected the curve of the station ring in which it was
situated, and the seats on each edge were noticeably higher than those in the
center. The station’s rotation simulated a significant fraction of Earth’s
gravity, and if you didn’t think about it too much, you might persuade yourself
that you were in some university lecture hall back on Earth.

The briefing had not yet started, and the room hummed with the
chatter and occasional laughs of the gathering officers of the alliance. The
uniforms present varied wildly in color, at least within the muted spectrum of
tans, olives, blues, grays and white that militaries preferred to adopt.

Calling this an alliance is too bold,
Donovan thought
.
A lot of countries, without a lot of history together – or a bad history, like
the U.K. and India, or us and Russia. This is a coalition of convenience and
self-interest, not friends.

He sat between Ramesh and Gardiner Fairchild and buried his
eyes in his handheld, hoping no acquaintances would attempt to greet him.

At one point, Ramesh vaulted over their row of chairs to
greet another Indian Space Force officer. He pulled a good-sized white-orange
conch shell from his bag and gave it to the officer, who thanked him profusely.

“Mollusks in space?” Fairchild asked him when retook his
seat.

Ramesh smiled. “Old Indian tradition. When we first put
people in orbit, our hyper-rationalistic government at the time refused to
allow any personal or religious items to be carried up, on the official grounds
it was excess mass that could be used for scientific instruments. It was also
an unofficial attempt to promote the state over religion and ethnicity. Our
astronaut corps eventually revolted and started transporting small gifts to the
long-term residents of our first station. Now, everyone coming up from the
surface is supposed to bring something you can’t make up here in a fab unit.”