Prophets

Mallory’s first thought was that they flew through a storm, but the windows still showed a cloudless blue sky.

As the aircraft settled again, Dorner whispered, “Oh, my God.”

Mallory looked up at her and saw her peering out the window behind him. He looked out the window and shuddered.

The sky wasn’t completely cloudless.

In the distance, a mushroom cloud was rolling up into the stratosphere.

“What’s happened to our satellites?” Alexander yelled.

“We’ve lost contact,” replied the militia officer.

“I see that!”

In front of him, most of the holos showed graphics reading, “Acquiring signal.” It had been several minutes, and there was little sign of the signals being acquired. He had lost contact with half the planet, his view of the converging ships in orbit, and his overhead of the blast area. The only sign he had that the nuke had detonated was a camera in Ashley with line of sight on the blast. The mushroom cloud was framed in the image.

“Okay, if the sats are off-line, order our people to switch to shortwave frequency communication.” It wouldn’t be as reliable, but it would give them some over-the-horizon communication, though he wondered if any defensive measures were ultimately futile.

“Sir, a militia aircraft is requesting permission to land.”

“Which one?”

“Militia Transport 0523, piloted by Commander Huygens.”

That was the one carrying the surviving offworlders. “Yes. Have the ground crew secure the landing area. I don’t want anyone within a hundred meters of that aircraft. I’ll be down there momentarily.” He stood up and looked at the officer. “Pass down authorization to all the regional commanders to use their discretion in defending their areas. I have no idea how long we’ll still have centralized command and control.”

He turned to leave.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“What about the rest of the Triad?”

Alexander paused. They were still locked in the conference room, out of contact, probably quite aware they were prisoners now. “Send a man in to brief them. And if, for any reason, you lose contact with me, let them go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alexander left for the landing area.

“What did they nuke?” Dorner asked, her voice shaking.

“I don’t know,” Mallory told her. For all they knew, they had landed in the midst of some planetary conflict. It would explain the armed rescue.

What disturbed him was how close that blast seemed to be to where Kugara and Nickolai’s lifeboat had landed. Even if they weren’t in the immediate blast radius, the area was all wooded, primed for deadly firestorms.

If they were lucky, they’d have been rescued by another of these transports. But they were heading to rendezvous at lifeboat five . . . Mallory prayed that they weren’t hiking through the forest when the bomb went off.

Only partly comprehensible radio traffic leaked in from the cockpit.

“I think we’re landing,” Pak said.

Mallory looked back out the window and saw their aircraft maneuvering for landing at the outskirts of a small