The Trials (The Red Trilogy Book 2) (47 page)

“But—”

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me! This is not a game. Your orders are to escort Semak to the evacuation capsule. You will secure him there in a reentry couch. You will seal the capsule, and then you will drop that fucker back into the world. Is that understood?”

Jaynie knows more than she’s telling us. The urgency in her voice makes it clear the stakes have gone higher than I want to imagine, but I don’t need to know the details. The only question is, do I trust her?

That’s an easy question to answer.

“Is that
understood
?” Jaynie repeats.

“Yes, ma’am, it is.” I move to free Semak. “Executing orders now.”

•   •   •   •

As we return Semak to the hermitage, he rolls his eyes and shows his worn-out teeth in a grimace of amusement. “You have lost,” he whispers, in English this time. But when we strap him into one of the capsule’s reentry couches his expression changes. Fear returns to his voice. “What is this? What do you do?”

“You are wanted back home,” Kurnakova tells him.

I don’t think anyone really wants Semak. I suspect that, like us, the Russians are mostly interested in the data he keeps in his overlay.

We close the doors and seal them. Then we retreat to
Lotus
.

The launch of the capsule is handled from the ground. With Kurnakova, I watch through
Lotus
’s windows as it drifts clear of the hermitage. Rockets fire, and it falls away.

“Our turn,” Kurnakova says. “You ready to go home?”

There’s regret, knowing I’ll never be up here again. But I’m one of the lucky few. At least I got to experience it once.

“Yes, I’m ready.”

She completes the separation, fires the rocket motors, and we are away.

•   •   •   •

After consultation with STS ground control, she executes a deorbit burn and we begin our descent. Africa passes beneath us, remote and beautiful. The deserts of the Middle East roll by. India. We enter the atmosphere, the nose of
Lotus
pitched up.

The speed of our descent compresses the air in front of us, causing it to heat and glow, a plasma that appears pale pink at first, gradually deepening to red orange. The plasma curtains our view and breaks our link to ground control, but our descent remains smooth. There is no shaking.

Minutes pass, and then Kurnakova authorizes the AI pilot to roll
Lotus
on its side and we begin a long bank to control our descent. Another turn, and another. The craft is agile.

“We could slow more quickly,” Kurnakova says. “At this point we could land in Hawaii if we needed to, or California, or Mexico.”

A map on the instrument panel shows that we have flown from day into night.

“We will follow a gradual glide profile, coming in high and slow over the continent to mitigate sonic—”

The radio wakes up as we emerge from communications blackout. The now-familiar voice of Kurnakova’s ground control handler speaks again in the same slow, friendly voice he’s used throughout the flight, but his message is no longer nominal.

“
Lotus
, your flight plan has been revised. Sending new navigation sequence now. Landing is redirected to facility at sixteen forty-five north, one sixty-nine thirty-one west.”

Kurnakova leans against her restraints, glaring at the instruments as
Lotus
parses the instruction, helpfully marking the location on the map. It’s a long way from San Antonio. Just a point in the Pacific Ocean west and south of Hawaii. “Say again, STS.”

“Landing is redirected to the emergency runway at Johnston Atoll.”

The red curve of a revised flight path appears on the map, and all on its own,
Lotus
begins another steep bank.

Kurnakova abandons the ritualized exchange of communications. “Gene, what are you talking about? There is no emergency. Conditions are nominal.”

“Negative,
Lotus
. Emergency conditions dictate an immediate landing. We will reassess once you’re on the ground.”

The panel lights are reflected in a sheen of sweat on Kurnakova’s cheeks as she glares at the map. “STS, what is the condition of the emergency runway?”

“Acceptable,
Lotus
. The runway was rebuilt eighteen months ago.”

Her professionalism gives way to disgust. “And how many hurricanes have rolled over it since, Gene? Has it been cleaned? Inspected?”

Gene’s official tone shifts to something more personal. “There are no landing lights, Ulyana. But there will be US Navy helicopters present to illuminate the runway.”

She switches off the mic. Then she leans back in her seat, gaze frozen on the instrument panel. “I’m sorry, Shelley.”

I use my satellite relay to link to gen-com.

“Jaynie?”

“Here.”

“We’re not coming back. We’re being routed to Johnston Atoll on the basis of an undefined and unconfirmed emergency. They say we’ll be allowed to land, but there may be an accident.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll see what we can find out, what we can do. Can you divert and land somewhere else?”

“Negative,” Kurnakova says. “Flight computer has control.”

“Roger that.”

Our long bank has gone full circle. We are spiraling down through the atmosphere, dumping velocity fast. I can’t help myself. I glance over the seat back to check on the warhead, where it’s securely strapped to the deck. It looks as harmless as ever, just an unadorned steel cylinder that gives no hint of its terrible potential. But more dangerous now than its physical power are the implications of its existence and its history. The warhead is testimony to failed nuclear security, both past and present, and to the vulnerability of the technological system we have created with our satellites and our ubiquitous electronics.

If Semak had blown the nuke in orbit, he could have ignited a world war. That didn’t happen. We brought the device down to ensure it wouldn’t happen, but now both the Americans and the Russians have a problem, because if the news gets out that they allowed a nuke into orbit, old treaties will be terminated and a race to militarize space will commence. Even the dreams of dragons will fade as private development is choked off out of concerns for security, leaving companies like Sidereal Transit Systems to crumble into dust.

To prevent that, time is now being unwound, history rewritten, facts force-fitted into a politically convenient narrative. The warhead we found will disappear again, Semak will not survive his precarious descent in the evacuation capsule, Kurnakova will die in a tragic accident at Johnston Atoll, and I will never have been present at all.

The worst part of it is I understand why they need to do this.

Not that I intend to cooperate.

“Jaynie.”

“Here, Shelley.”

“Talk to Jones. If we can get control of the flight computer—”

The plasma glow is gone, but the night sky lights up again in a blinding white burst. As swift as the light, the realization comes: They are shooting at us. Shock follows: They did not score a direct hit.

Maybe our speed saved us, or maybe the tiny profile of our spaceplane wasn’t programmed into their guidance system—or maybe the Red is trying to play this out a little longer?

The shock wave from the explosion collapses that hope. We are still in a steep bank when it slams into us. An alarm launches a buzzing protest as
Lotus
bucks, shimmies, and rolls over, hard and fast so that the horizon line on the instrument panel is upside down and I’m hanging in my harness. The truth hits next: The missile detonated as intended—ahead of us—avoiding the miniscule risk of a direct hit on the nuke, because the shock wave alone is enough to bring us down.

Debris from the blast slams into us with ear-shattering concussions. The flight computer is overwhelmed and aborts its program, yielding to Kurnakova. She grabs the controls. “Fuck!” she screams, working frantically to get us upright again. “Roll for me, sweet one. Try!”

Lotus
swoops. I’m thrown sideways in my harness. The fuselage vibrates madly, and from somewhere there comes a high metallic scream as the plane begins to tear apart—but the horizon icon on the instrument panel shows us to be upright again.

Then
Lotus
goes dark as the electrical system fails.

A thin wash of moonlight falls across the instrument panel. The satellite relay is still clipped to it. It’s a field unit, independent of
Lotus
and running on batteries. “Jaynie!”

“Stand by. We’re talking to STS ground con—”

“Jaynie, we’re going down! Tell Delphi I’m sorry.”

Kurnakova is alternately cursing at
Lotus
and begging the plane to bring its nose up, up, as she works the flight controls. I flash on Delphi, listening. She doesn’t need to hear any more of this. Breathing hard, I reach out and switch the satellite link off.

Lotus
continues to shudder and shake. Not long now before we burst apart.

At least the mission succeeded. It was worth doing. We recovered the intel from Semak, and then we went beyond the mission plan and returned a rogue nuke to the world. That nuke will soon be on the bottom of the Pacific, but a submarine crew will surely come to recover it.

I wonder:
Is the story supposed to end this way?

I think it is. I’ve had my run. I’ve played my role. Welcome to the finale.

Fuck that.

I don’t want it to end. I don’t want it to be over. So I grope for options. I grasp for ideas. Anything. There is no way
Lotus
can hold together long enough to land, but maybe it doesn’t have to. I unbuckle my harness.
Lotus
bucks, throwing me into the instrument panel. But then I get myself braced. “Slow us down!” I yell at Kurnakova. “Get our speed down as far as you can!”

She pitches me a look, moonlight glittering in her wild eyes. “I’m trying to make Johnston!”

“We’ll never make Johnston! So we’re getting out. You remember? The B
61
? We’ve got its parachute!”

“You’re fucking crazy!”

No shit.

“It
cannot
happen,” she insists as if the idea actually offends her. “You say this because you do not comprehend how fast we are going!”

“So slow us the fuck down! Do you want to die?”

I heave myself over the seat just as the plane drops out from under me. It’s only my grip on the seat back that keeps me from being hurled against the ceiling. But when I get my feet under me again, Kurnakova has recovered control. The plane is still trembling, shuddering, but we’re flying level. It’s an interlude of peace compared with what we just went through—but it lasts only seconds. There’s a deafening
crack!
and then wind shrieks, prying into the fuselage and I’m in free fall again—but Kurnakova is still doing battle. She gets the nose of the plane up and once more our descent slows. If we were still flying at supersonic velocity, surely we would have ripped apart by now?

I heave myself at the parachute, hammering the quick-release buckles that hold it strapped to the deck. Then I haul it to the jump seat we set up for Semak. I’m gambling the seat has a titanium frame. Holding myself in place with my feet, I couple the parachute to the jump seat using a cargo strap and the swivel from the parachute rig. Then I unclip the seat from the deck. My theory is that when the seat falls with my weight and Kurnakova’s in it, it will be enough to trigger the parachute to deploy—or at least things would work that way in a comic-book universe where superheroes rule. In the real world? The seat frame will probably snap.

Like Kurnakova said, I’m fucking crazy.

I grip the seat with my foot to keep it close, then I lean over Kurnakova, screaming to be heard over the wind. “How fast are we going?”

“It does not matter! We are going down!”

“Come with me now!” I reach over the seat to unbuckle her harness.

She shoves my hands away. It’s an instinctive defense. She’s not fighting me. Not really, because a moment later
she hits the release button, wriggles out of her harness, and rolls over the back of the seat.

Lotus
starts to roll again. I grab Kurnakova and throw myself into the jump seat before it can slide away. I’ve got her in my lap while I grip the seat’s frame with my robot feet. “Get the harness around us!”

The deck tilts and the fuselage screams. A piece tears out above our heads. Another follows. We are seconds away from catastrophic failure.

Kurnakova twists, grabbing one side of the jump seat’s harness. I grab the other just as the fuselage shatters with an ear-rending scream. What I see is like a still shot, composed in moonlight, frozen in time: flakes and shards of the fuselage suspended in the grip of a hurricane wind.

A fraction of a second later the debris hits. Kurnakova’s body shields mine. I feel her anguished spasms. I taste her blood in the ripping air. And then she’s gone. Vanished in the roaring dark.

I’m still in the chair, my feet locked on its frame, one hand with a death grip on half the harness. And I’m falling backward. God knows if I’m clear of the debris. I wrestle the harness over my shoulders and fight with the buckle, once, twice, and then it locks just as the parachute deploys, a roar of rippling canvas followed by a low
whump!
like mortar fire that puts the stars out. God’s hand reaches down out of the empty dark, arresting my momentum so abruptly my bones try to separate at every joint, my lungs collapse, and my brain slams against the inside of my skull.

•   •   •   •

The world starts up again and I’m still falling. It takes me a few seconds to really register the fact. Surprise follows that I’m not dead—not yet. Can’t be much longer though. Fuck.

I try to assess the situation. Wind is racing past me, brutalizing my eyes, roaring in my ears, stripping away my body heat as it hammers the fabric of my coverall into rippling waves and drives a mad feathering in the canvas above my head.

That canvas is my parachute. Is it working? It’s deployed, but is it fully deployed or is it just a tangled mess trailing me in my long fall?