to a stop well short of the runways far end. Men started to run toward him from the edge of the jungle and the trucks followed, the fuel tankers, the crane lorry and the transporter carrying the package for the return flight.
This time round he’d be dropping his load on the big Israeli nuclear power plant south of Tel Aviv.
Sadakan popped the canopy and flipped open his suit visor, taking a deep breath of the humid night air. There was no fear in the night. They’d be in and out long before the Philippine authorities would be able to react. His employers had purchased a generous quantity of slow on the local market.
The imaging on the Alpha screen had shifted, real-timed in from the Low Sentry that had just arrived in the sky above the Philippine archipelago. The hole over the Pacific was closing and they had full coverage back.
“The watch officer at the National Command Authority on the Gold Line for you, ma’am. And the complex commander. We’re still sealed and he’s stuck outside the Alpha gate.”
“Tell them we have an incident under way and to stand by.”
The reconsat was scanning in the thermal range. Its cameras showed a runway inset in the jungle with a group of men and vehicles clustering around a small delta-winged suborbital that glowed white with residual reentry heat.
“Sergeant, are there any occupied structures in the immediate vicinity of that airstrip?”
The image windowed back to a wider coverage.
“Nothing within at least ten ks, ma’am. They picked themselves one very lonely place.”
“That was very convenient of them,” Judy said mostly to herself.
“Major,” the voice from the communications station was insistent. “We got the White House Situation Room on now!”
“Tell them to stand by!”
Once she answered the outside world, her role in this crisis would irreversibly change. She would be just another link in a chain of command. The responsibility and the decision-making would pass on to the generals and the statesmen. But for now, for this moment, Judith Anne MacIntyre was still the person at the bottom of the Sweat Pit. She was the one who carried both the shield and the sword. The defender and the nemesis.
“Sergeant Valdez, do we have any attack sats in position?”
“Yes, ma’am, we do. Black KAT Able Spade Two-Five.”
Kinetic Attack Satellite Able Spade Two-five blew away its stealth shroud, its metastate sprint engine hurling it toward the dark surface of the Earth below and toward an isolated island in the western Pacific. The tightly packed swarm of kill darts it released were kin to the three sisters that had targeted the Superbowl. Only these weapons were no garage-made patch-togethers. These were the genuine article, swifter, more sophisticated and vastly more accurate.
They were also smaller, each dart weighing only ten pounds.
But there were two hundred of them.
The patch of jungle boiled and flamed in the satellite imaging. There was no longer an airstrip there. There was no longer anything there.
“Stand down from War Mode Three and unseal the mountain. All stations, well done. Resume the shift change. However, ladies and gentlemen, I suggest you all hang around. We’ve all got a lot of debriefing to do. Communications, open the channel to the White House Situation Room.”
Major Judith Anne MacIntyre glanced down at the cup of coffee in the cup holder of the command chair, the one she had drawn for herself several lifetimes ago.
She touched it. It was still warm.
THE SOLDIER WITHIN
“Now you’re going to meet the most important friend you’ll ever have,” the sergeant said.
We were standing far away from the main training camp. The ground was covered in patches of dry, flat grass, desperately trying to hold onto its green color but fading quickly to brown. Kind of like our uniforms. I rolled my eyes to look at my fellow recruits on either side of me. Right now our most important friend would have been a tall glass of cold water, or an air conditioner.
A sweat bead dropped off my forehead and past the front of my eye. I kept myself from wiping my brow; we were supposed to stand perfectly still while at attention.
“Do you want to know who that friend is?” the sergeant asked.
“Yes, sir!” we shouted. My throat felt hoarse.
The sergeant narrowed his eyes, even though his back was the one to the sun. “That friend is your new weapon. The SM-rifle.”
I blinked. I had never heard of the SM-rifle. From the vibes I was getting off my colleagues, neither had anyone else.
A covered truck had been parked next to the sergeant; the door opened and two soldiers jumped out. One of them moved to the back of the truck and began unloading boxes; the other one set up a folding table.
The sergeant glanced at the soldiers briefly, then turned back to us. “You’re probably wondering what the SM-rifle is. Well, in a few minutes you’ll find out.
“As I call your name, come up here, get your rifle from the corporal, and return to your position. You may examine your rifle, but do not turn it on. Understand?”
“Yes, Sergeant!” we all shouted, despite our confusion. How did one “turn on” a rifle? Why didn’t he warn us to treat the weapon as if it were loaded? He didn’t really want us flagging our weapons, did he?
Having my last name in the middle of the alphabet meant that I got to watch as others got their rifles— excuse me, their SM-rifles—and brought them back to their positions. I noticed a lot of us straining to get a better look.
Finally, the sergeant called my name. I trotted up to the table where the corporal sat. I recognized her from the mess tent; she worked in the administrative section of the base, so we never interacted. Which was a shame, as she was a cute redhead whose hair flowed out from under her cap, not cut to the regulation buzz like the rest of us. As she opened the box and handed me my rifle and sling, I smiled at her. She flashed a smile at me in the space of a moment and then was back to being all business. I felt eyes on the back of my head and turned around to see the sergeant glaring at me.
As quickly as I could, I ran back to my position with the rifle, and then began to study it. The rifle was a lot heavier and bulkier than the zip guns I’d been used to popping on the streets before I had been drafted. Come to think of it, it was wider than any other rifle I had ever seen before. Its length seemed right, though; I hefted it up and found that the rifle had a sight attached to the top. The stock and barrel were both made of a dark metal, which absorbed the sunlight. And sure enough, it had an on/off switch on the trigger housing, right next to the safety.
Within a few minutes, all the rifles had been distributed and the sergeant shouted, “Tench-hut!”
Immediately, we stood at attention, with the rifles balanced in one hand, the butt resting on the ground.
The sergeant smiled, deliberately showing all his teeth. “In the olden days, sergeants used to tell the apes under their command that their weapon was their best friend. Well, for the first time in history, it’s actually true.
“Hold your SM-rifle so you’re looking at the right side. You’ll notice a tiny screen that’s camouflaged to look like the rest of the metal. That screen will display all sorts of information once your rifle is activated. You’ll probably ignore it most of the time, though, except when your rifle’s unable to talk.”
Unable to talk? Since when did rifles talk?
“SM stands for Simulated Mind. Remember that medical test where the lab coats put that helmet on your head for an hour?”
I remembered. That helmet had been heavy, and it hurt. I spent the rest of the day massaging the aches out of my neck.
