The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) (26 page)

Six days later, Katherine Naima sipped a vodka tonic on
her yacht’s fantail, taking pleasure in the bright sunshine and watching birds
wheel off the southern cliffs of Ardoyne.

The boat was one confiscated by her department several years
back, after its owner had been accused of running weapons to the rebels. Rather
than disposing of it, she had quietly put it on the books as a patrol boat
under her department’s control.

When she reached the government’s small executive dockyard, she
had been happily surprised to find it crewed and ready to launch. As they cast
off, she had promised to reward the captain with half of the boat’s sale price
to divide between the crew. That would be a high amount, as the hurricane here
had destroyed a number of executive yachts, and Ardoyne’s moneyed would be
thrilled to locate a replacement on-planet. But she knew she couldn’t stay on
the island, either: A couple of crew members had families in Tecolote they
wanted to return to, and they would very likely tell someone looking for
revenge how to find her.

She doubted the others would let her get away with killing
those two.

It is time to leave Entente
, she thought.
Perhaps
I should go back to Commonwealth. There’s room there to do it right, to carve
out a real country in the wilderness.

Once San José was in rebel hands, Kao Tai was told to
bring her former source to orbit. Second Bureau operatives who had arrived with
Pan’s fleet would take over on Entente; the work there – interrogations,
resistance suppression, and so on – was not her specialty, and she was left
with little to do but try to break into Irene Sato’s handheld, which the NSS
officer had failed to wipe before her capture.
Xun would know what to do
,
she thought, missing him. But she made progress: She found a monitoring
program, set to mirror all incoming and outgoing communications on another handheld.
The target computer was no longer in the Beta Comae Berenices system, but the
program plugged away anyway, pulling in messages from across the interstellar
network of wormhole comm buoys. The program itself was not unusual, but its
target was. It might be a useful source, at least until someone found relay
program on the target handheld, or upgraded to a new machine.
Such
hypocrisy,
she thought.
They spy on each other as much as we do
.

A few days later, she was summoned to meet with the Second
Bureau subdirector who was managing operations in the system, and she learned
that she and Irene Sato would be dispatched on a fast courier vessel back to
Chinese space, ultimately to join the main Chinese fleet at Sirius.

“A fine catch, Officer Kao,” the subdirector told her. “Your
prisoner will be turned over to our senior interrogators in the fleet. Given
your association with her, you will be expected to advise them.”

Kao Tai bowed her head.

“We also plan to pair you with another operative, whose
skills we believe complement your talents, on a special project.”

“I previously have worked with no one except my brother,”
she said.

The subdirector ignored her. “It is, in fact, the rogue
operative you inquired about several weeks ago, the one who left us at Longshan.
We traced him to Kuan Yin and got in touch. He has agreed to return to the fold
by the end of the year. We expect you will be an effective pairing.”

How interesting,
Kao Tai thought.
The man I just
betrayed to the Americans.

The rebels did all the things rebels typically did; they
set up a revolutionary command council; they promised a constitution and
elections within the year; they executed perceived threats to the new order and
sought accommodations with those who would support it. The council appointed
Colonel Tan Pierce’s partner, Joshua Moro Rodriguez, as acting president until
the crisis had passed, and he was expected to run for the office when and if
elections were held.

The rebels also accepted a package of military and economic
aid from the People’s Republic of China, whose officers told the ruling council
in no uncertain terms that their foreign policy was subject to approval. If the
rebels strayed, China would replace them with someone with more foresight about
the consequences of their actions.

Colonel Aziz lived several days
certain each would be his last. In rebel eyes, he was the butcher of the U.N.
station where a number of their families had lived. But their Chinese overseers
learned of his capture, and took a more pragmatic stance: Aziz was popular
among the surviving members of Tecolote’s military, and the troops needed to be
folded into the new regime. Aziz played along, pointing out ideologues in the
officer corps, who were extracted and imprisoned. In the end, he found himself
named deputy chief of staff of the reformed military, and he was provided all
the benefits of Chinese-produced propaganda, which led some to forgive and
forget his role in the massacre.

Still, he never went outside without his sidearm.

Tippy Griego returned to his home, which had only been
vandalized. He cleaned up for a few weeks, located many of his workers and his
equipment, and let the right people in the new government and some of the big
companies know he was again ready to serve food and drink at their events.

Then he went fishing.

Ten brigades of the People’s Liberation Army landed on New
Albion three weeks later – some on the shore and others inland, dropped from
orbit. The British Army had repaired its defenses since the last attempted
invasion, but the Chinese made rapid gains, conquering the adjacent Canadian
colony of Laurentia, besieging New Sydney, and bombarding the allied positions
from orbit. The defenders retreated and dug in on the outskirts on New Albion’s
largest city, often in the same bunkers they had used before beating back the
prior siege. The Long Night had begun anew.

QUITO, ECUADOR – Much of the nation plunged into
darkness after debris from a destroyed Japanese warship collided with a major
orbital solar power array serving several Andean states. Several governments
called out troops to quell looting, and President Andrea Montalvo pledged to
restart several mothballed synthgas plants to provide electricity, prompting
criticisms from environmental organizations about the risk of upsetting
“nascent and fragile climate norms” with the pollution they would create.
Officials in Europa and Brazil, in a rare moment of agreement, called on all
warring nations to fund repairs to the solar stations.

USS Valley Forge, 11 Leonis Minoris

The trick
, Erin Quintana thought,
is somehow
making an eight-thousand-ton destroyer look like a frightened rabbit.

Convinced that long-departed
Vincennes
wasn’t coming
back, the three Chinese destroyers had at last made their move, thrusting to
chase
Valley Forge
through the wormhole and out of view of Kuan Yin for
good.

They must have no fear of what may be beyond the keyhole
,
Erin thought. Certainly they had received intelligence about dozens of American
and Russian warships departing Wolf 359 some weeks back, but it would have been
cowardly not to pursue a single ship because of suspicions of a ghost fleet in
the adjacent red dwarf system.

Captain Mallett did her best to draw the three destroyers
close. The ship made a show of trying to get in some final observations of Kuan
Yin, launching a variety of sensor and communications repeater drones, and
turning her long side toward the planet and coasting to appear as if she was
employing sensors at her nose and tail as an interferometer.

The destroyers closed, launching sporadic shells at
Valley
Forge.
They were easy to dodge, but they slowed the destroyer’s advance
toward the keyhole.

Inside the ship’s CIC, Erin stole a glance at General
Grogan, seated at one of the Aux consoles. His usual grim frown looked deeper;
he clearly did not like his command put at risk for a cat-and-mouse game with
what he regarded as a minor enemy space force. Erin allowed herself a moment’s
pleasure in his discomfort.

“
Diaz
reports ready,” said
Valley Forge
’s
communications officer.

“All right, let’s run for it,” Mallett said. “Bear toward
the wormhole, one-quarter gee. Lasers, maximum power to point defenses. Guns,
give ‘em some metal, but not too much. Just make it look like we’re trying.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Erin said. Only one of the three enemy destroyers
was not obscured by
Valley Forge’
s candle. At Erin’s command, both of
the primary coilgun turrets rotated and launched shells at her. They closed at
more than seven kilometers per second.

That destroyer dodged and lost ground, but the other two kept
coming.

When they were 1,500 kilometers distant, Mallett said, “Flip
and continue at one-quarter gee.” Now
Valley Forge
was decelerating
relative to the wormhole, at a thrust that would put her at rest in eighteen
minutes. Her nose was facing the Chinese ships, so she could no longer use her
drive to burn up incoming kinetics.

We’re cutting it close,
Erin thought. The Chinese
could try laser shots at this range and probably do some damage, but they
risked losing them to
Valley Forge
’s counterbatteries. They could also attempt
to close to point-blank range, where even a single laser strike was likely to
destroy something vital.

As she watched, they launched missiles, which closed
rapidly.
Valley Forge
’s point defenses dispatched most of them, but
three flechettes dug into the destroyer’s hull.

“Not showing any systems affected!” called the damage
control officer. “I think the nose armor stopped them.”

The cluster of ships slowed, with
Valley Forge
’s nose
facing the tails of the Chinese ships. The keyhole and its attendant
infrastructure grew closer.

“Sierras-8, -9 and -12 undergoing turnover! They’re bringing
forward lasers to bear. Range five hundred kilometers!”

“Bring up the nose, five degrees, and fire at one gee for
twelve seconds, then cut to coast. Guns, Lasers, rake the enemy,” Captain
Mallett said.

Everyone felt the sudden weight for a moment, their confused
bodies telling them, briefly, they must be back on a planet. As the three Chinese
destroyers briefly presented their long axes during their turnover,
Valley
Forge
altered her course slightly, and she passed
above
the
keyhole’s first guidance ring …

… and the battlecruiser
Javier Benavidez y Diaz
emerged
through the mouth, her teeth bared. Her main lasers punched into the exposed
belly of the lead Chinese destroyer and burst through the ship’s far side.
Shells from her spinal mount raced toward the vessel. She spun, out of control.

The remaining two Chinese destroyers did not react in
concert; the nearer one completed its flip and fired its drive, apparently
trying to pass beyond the
Diaz
as quickly as possible, while the further
one reversed its turn and pointed its nose toward Kuan Yin.

Erin aimed her guns at the nearer one, leading it. If it
wanted to avoid the shells, it would have to slow down, which would keep it in
the firing window of the
Diaz
’s forward weapons
that much longer.

Next through the keyhole
arrived one of those little
Kiowa
-class
escort frigates that big ships like
Diaz
relied on to cover their
flanks. Two more
Kiowas
followed; the trio pivoted in near unison and
fired into the Chinese destroyer, now racing by the wormhole. Little white
sprays of gas emerged from the hull as the ship vented atmosphere. The ship
raced away, a cloud of missiles chasing it.

“Impeccable timing,
Diaz
,” Captain Mallett
transmitted.

“Sorry we forgot the cavalry bugle, but you served them up
nicely,
Valley Forge
,” the battlecruiser’s captain replied. “The admiral
says you get the assist for Sierra-12, as long as you direct the
search-and-rescue for any survivors. She asks you and your officers to join us
for briefings once we get the entire fleet through the keyhole and launch for
Sequoia. We won’t waste any time.”

Near Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin

Even with all his new responsibilities, Rand insisted on
doing his old job – watching the sky. Aguirre, the only other space defense
artilleryman in the guerrilla company, usually joined him.

“Days gettin’ shorter,” Aguirre commented as they set up the
battered telescope. “Time to get some nightlife rollin’.”

Rand chuckled. It was late summer, and they would have
roughly ninety minutes of darkness while the sun dipped below the horizon.

He checked the American keyhole, in the leading Trojan point
of the second planet in the system, Amitabha. It had been obscured by the sun
for weeks and now was only barely above the horizon, but Rand had looked every
night: It was where help would come from, if it ever came.

The scope centered on the keyhole’s position: He expected to
see nothing; it was too small and dark to register anything. What he saw was a
fuzzy white blob, the combined light of a great many terawatt-strength fusion
candles, thrusting toward where Kuan Yin would be in about a month.

Someone is here, again.
He had felt this
fear-tempered hope once before, when the Space Force tried to retake the system
last year. That had failed.
At this distance, with this equipment, I can’t
be sure they’re friendlies. But might as well assume they are.

“Mission just changed, Hal,” he said. “Get the word out to
the clans to stop striking the Hans and start gathering intel on them. And get
somebody to recharge the damn transmitter; at some point those Space Force
pukes might break through the jamming, and I want to make sure we have some
stories to tell when they do. Then we can welcome the invaders and have them
pull us the hell out of here.”

USS Carpenter, 11 Leonis Minoris

Neil had never been on one of the
Armstrong
-class
assault carriers before; they were the biggest ships in the fleet and carried
close to two thousand Marines between the stars.
Carpenter’s
cavernous
interior and many decks also made the ship best suited to host all the meetings
for the troops and astronauts preparing for the coming battle.

Neil attended the intel briefings, which focused on Chinese
capabilities as revealed by nearly two years of fighting. Even now, they faced
so much uncertainty: Was the Chinese admiral defending Kuan Yin still the
reviled Kong Ruchang, who defeated the allied fleet here eighteen months ago,
or had he been replaced? What sort of general was Xie Quanyou, the putative
commander on the ground? Mostly Neil listened, and let his brain soak in the
information, trusting he would recall it when necessary. He did take part in
one panel of intel officers who had fought at Kuan Yin before, and he answered
a few questions on the
Deng Shichang
-class cruisers that had contributed
mightily to the allies’ previous defeats.

After that briefing, he went to lunch in one of the ship’s
chow halls;
Carpenter
had won awards for some of the best food in the
fleet, and Neil quietly suspected that was why the admiral had the briefings
held here, instead of on any of her sisters traveling with them.

He sat, alone, absentmindedly spearing vegetables while reading
a report inside his eye. He didn’t notice two familiar female forms float in
front of him.

“Lieutenant Mercer, you didn’t tell me you had a thing for
weapons officers,” Jessica said.

Neil started, sending a disc of potato au gratin spinning
toward the ceiling, throwing off little bits of melted cheese at it went.

Beside and slightly behind Jessica was Neil’s old flame Erin
Quintana, her thin frame and demure smile an easy contrast to Jessica’s
broad-shouldered, boisterous presence.

Think fast, Mercer.
“I like to live on the edge.
After all, if you piss them off, you end up being target practice.”

Erin’s smile deepened, and Jessica laughed and shook her
head. “I have to get to another briefing,” she said. “You two old shipmates should
catch up.”

She departed, and Erin pulled herself into a seat. Neil
heard slight “thunks” as her boots attached to the floor magnets.

“She seems nice,” Erin said.

“Don’t know what she sees in me, but, yeah, it’s good. She’s
good,” Neil said.

“I hadn’t heard where you went after Kitsinger,” Erin said.
“When they told us the fleet was coming, I messaged Tom to ask whether he was
in it. He said no, but he said your ship was, and that we ought to catch up.”

That’s telling. I knew you were on
Valley Forge.
Keeping
track of your friends felt too much like leisure, Erin? Can’t have that.

He wondered at the bitterness in his thoughts, and he saw
her giving him a brief, appraising look, and then her mask of professionalism
returned.

“
Apache
’s no
San Jacinto,”
Neil said. “But
we’ve been through a couple of scrapes.” He felt like he should ask her a
question, but nothing occurred to him that wouldn’t sound forced.

He was still thinking when Erin said, “Are you able to
access information about the Army guys still fighting on Kuan Yin?”

Neil blinked. “No. I tried, but no need-to-know for an intel
weenie like me, I guess.”

“That’s what I thought,” Erin said. “I’m sure I’m violating
a reg, but your friend Rand is still alive, or at least was, a few months ago
before the Chinese put out so much jamming we lost contact with the guerillas entirely.
Last we heard, Rand was pretty high up in the chain of command down there.”

Rand’s still alive.
“Someone put him in charge? We
must be in more trouble than I thought,” Neil said, smiling to show he was
joking. It was the kind of razzing he and Rand would have thrown at each other
back when they were roommates. She tilted her head slightly, a movement that
triggered memories of their not-quite-relationship. “Seriously, thanks, Erin.
That means a lot,” he said.

She nodded. “I’m glad I could help. It was good seeing you,
Neil. Stay safe.” She touched his hand and stood.

Neil mumbled, “You too,” as she launched herself toward the
exit. She deftly grabbed a green apple from some wall netting without stopping
her forward motion, passed through the hatch, and was gone.

The main afternoon session was heavily attended; it was a
general operations and intelligence briefing, with a significant retelling of
what was now known as the First and Second Battles of Kuan Yin. Captains and
intelligence officers were here in numbers, and the presentations were transmitted
to the rest of the fleet.

The briefers keyed on two pairs of numbers: thirty to
eighteen, and eight to four. The first was the numbers of fighting starships,
allied to Chinese, that would face off in the system. The Chinese count
included one destroyer that had fled
Diaz
’s ambush at the keyhole and
was returning to Kuan Yin, but it didn’t include the second, which had
apparently burned too much remass escaping. She had been forced to shape a slow
elliptical orbit to return to Kuan Yin, and she would arrive well after any
battle there was finished.

The second pair of numbers was the count of brigades each
side would have during the fight on Sequoia continent – presuming the transports
in the fleet made it through the Chinese space defenses unscathed.
Two-to-one
on the ground,
Neil thought
.
In ground warfare, the rule of thumb
was that an attacking force needed a three-to-one advantage in combat power for
a fifty-fifty shot at victory.
I guess we’re counting on orbital bombardment
to make up the difference. Hope the Chinese haven’t dug too many deep holes to
hide in.