Saul grinned. ‘Sub-orbital. I’m not
‘That’s pretty dangerous shit nonetheless,’ someone else said.
‘Sure.’ Saul made a point of shrugging, as if to say no big deal. ‘Maybe one in a thousand orbital divers wind up dead, but Mitch and me did it together, from more than twenty kilometres up. We used foam and Kevlar heat shields for the first five kilometres down, then wing-suits the rest of the way.’
Saul recalled the wide wings embellishing the one-piece flying suit. Rigid stabilizers built into each suit kept them from going into a deadly spin as they dropped down through the thickening atmosphere. At the time, he’d thought the experience might cure him of what had then been nothing more than a mild fear of flying, but instead it had made it much, much worse. He’d never even have agreed to it if Mitchell hadn’t been having such a hard time back then, coping with the death of his brother Danny.
Sefu waved a hand in mock dismissal, and several of the task force laughed. Saul felt himself grinning back.
‘So why the fuck do you look like you’re about to crap yourself?’ prodded Sefu.
‘When you jump, you’re in control,’ Saul explained. ‘Being on a plane isn’t the same, though, since your life’s in someone else’s hands. And anyway, it’s been a long while since I rode in a sub-orbital.’
‘Told you,’ said Sefu, looking around at the rest of them. ‘Chickenshit.’ They all laughed, but when Sefu gave him a grin, Saul could see it was much more friendly than before.
Confirmation of Saul’s temporary transfer had come through a few days after his interrogation by Donohue and Sanders.
Almost a week after his meeting with Donohue and Sanders, he’d made his way back through the Copernicus– Florida gate, reacquainting himself with the tug of full gravity and working at rebuilding his muscle strength in a government gym close by his apartment in Orlando. He scored himself some Bad Puppy – a milder derivative of loup-garou – and used it to steady his nerves and kill some of the pain still seeping through despite the medication he’d been given for his injuries. After that, he had hitched a ride aboard a military cargo hopper to an ASI facility near Berlin, where he’d then undergone a brief interview with Hanover in his office.
‘I realize that you knew Mitchell,’ Hanover had said, an operations room clearly visible through a glass pane behind him. ‘It’s too bad what happened to him. You should remember, however, that there’s a reason this is just a temporary assignment for you. Men like Stone are not easily replaced.’
‘I appreciate how that would be the case, sir,’ Saul had replied. ‘Can I ask just what happened to him? All I was told was that he’d been under some kind of secondment when he—’
Saul nodded perfunctorily. There was something distinctly glacial about Hanover’s manner.
‘Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,’ Hanover continued, ‘but you weren’t actually the first name I had in mind. In fact, why my original request was turned down remains something of a mystery to me.’
‘I can only do my best, sir.’
‘It’s more complicated than that. The members of this task force have a level of clearance that you don’t. They’re often engaged in highly classified work which you don’t need to know the details of.’
Saul guessed Hanover was digging for something. ‘It wasn’t my idea, sir. I was reassigned, and that’s all I can tell you.’
Hanover regarded him in silence for a moment before standing up and pulling open the door leading to the outer office. ‘You should know it’s my intention to file a complaint with your superiors. Not because of anything you’ve done, but because I’m concerned at the lack of explanation.’
‘Sir,’ Saul replied, standing too.
‘You’ll report for a final briefing at 0800 tomorrow morning,’ said Hanover. ‘I believe you’ve already been briefed on the essential details of our mission. We’re to recover ASI cargo hijacked from Florida.’
‘I was briefed, sir. Thank you.’
Hanover nodded, but his eyes glinted with suspicion. ‘Good. For as long as you’re with us, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about a lack of action.’
The sub-orbital started to level out just as an alert sounded. Saul pushed his head back, relying on the padded restraints around his shoulders, neck and waist to keep him from being thrown around the cabin like a rag doll. The back of his mouth felt sticky and hot still, with the memory of the Bad Puppy, and he found himself wondering if anyone else in Hanover’s squad was holding. Before long the engines kicked in, sending powerful vibrations rattling through his bones in the moments just before they made their final approach.
‘Everybody get ready to move out!’ Hanover yelled, pulling himself out of his own restraints before heading for the rear hatch. Saul glanced in the direction of the cockpit and caught sight of jungle silhouetted against star- speckled blackness, as they scrambled to disembark.
They dropped down one by one into humid darkness, milling around the small forest clearing in which the sub- orbital had landed on its powerful VTOL jets. The subtropical heat seeped in through Saul’s suit, enveloping his skin like a warm blanket and carrying with it unidentifiable scents. The black outline of a mountain rose to one side; the gentle rush of a river was audible somewhere se by.
The briefing earlier that morning had involved detailed orbital maps of a region in the central mountains of Taiwan, an island nation south of the coast of mainland China. Dozens of villages lay dotted around the slopes and lowlands, most of them accessible only by narrow, winding roads. Industrial compounds and mining operations, mostly abandoned and half swallowed up by the jungle, stood along the banks of every river. A few had been reclaimed by paramilitary groups left over from the days of the Hong Kong blockades, the majority of which continued to enjoy a profitable business partnership with the Tian Di Hui. Given that they were operating deep inside a Sphere-aligned nation, their mission was by necessity a covert one.
Saul first checked his Cobra’s fire parameters, then adjusted the temperature control of his suit until he felt more comfortable. He wasn’t quite the outright object of suspicion he had been when they set out, but he didn’t let himself forget that whoever had tipped off the hijackers was almost certainly standing just a few feet away.
Hanover called for everyone’s attention. ‘Check your UPs now for an updated overlay of the area with the latest intel.’ Saul watched as a shimmering grid of data positioned itself over the surrounding landscape. He pulled the focus back for a moment, until he could see the surrounding region displayed before him in its entirety, all the peaks
