Plague War

what he meant.

Hernandez could see how much it cost his friend merely to edge around the idea. He respected Gilbride for it. Using their brains was the best of what the Marine Corps had schooled in them, after all, and the war scattered across the Continental Divide was no longer about food and resources. Not anymore. Everyone wanted the vaccine. He knew he should absolutely condemn Gilbride for even hinting at rebellion…but all he said was, “Yeah. Yeah, it’s a mess.” And that itself was a small kind of encouragement.

Hernandez had only limited information, which he knew was intentional, another kind of leash. He was a career man and he smiled thinly at the traditional foot soldier’s complaint: I am but a mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.

Leadville wanted him to have no other options. Leadville had seen far too many deserters, so they not only intended to keep every ‚eld commander short on food and dependent on them. They also wanted their people to know as little as possible: the reasons for the war, and whether it was being won or lost. Hernandez had been ordered to maintain radio silence and quarantine, supposedly to prevent the rebels from discovering his location, but also to deafen him to the other side’s propaganda. They were all American. They all had the same equipment. The leadership had put Hernandez and other southern front commanders on frequencies once used by the Navy, yet it would be simple enough to listen to the enemy. To talk.

Lucy McKay was here to decrypt any messages received from Leadville and to encode their own reports. Back in town, there were a thousand techs like her combing radio traf‚c across the continent for patterns and clues. A thousand more studied intercepts from all over the world. Most of the civilian and military communications satellites were still up there above the sky and Leadville was top-heavy with personnel from agencies like the NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, and smaller intelligence groups like those of various state police.

The rebels had those experts, too. Hackers on both sides had fought to lock out, retake, or destroy the satellites. The information war was just as real as the bullets and bombs.

Sitting beside Gilbride, Hernandez was careful not to turn and look at the radio. Was it possible that McKay had heard something she wasn’t supposed to? Could she have made transmissions? He left the tent for hours at a time and there was so little for anyone to do in this goddamned place. The temptation must be huge. All of her training, the whole reason she’d been assigned to his command, was to be a radioman — and there was no question in his mind that she and Gilbride had a secret.

Hernandez breathed in from his mug, reluctant to ‚nish it. The coffee had cooled but its taste was a luxury, as was the rich, bitter smell. In a way its goodness hurt. It touched the lonely feeling in his chest that he constantly fought to ignore.

He waded into the silence again. “We’ll do okay,” he said. “We always have, right?”

Gilbride only nodded, protecting his ragged throat.

“You know this hill is about the most forgotten corner of the map. It’s a vacation.” Hernandez laughed suddenly. The notion was absurb. “Hell, this is a garden spot,” he said. “We’ll probably sit out the whole war.”

He was babbling. He was scared, and Gilbride looked away from him as if ashamed.

There was real dissent among their Marines. The question wasn’t if there was a problem, but how bad was it? That it had reached the command tent told Hernandez a lot.

Over at Bunker 5, Gilbride had probably saved him from a confrontation he’d only begun to worry about. His troops were close to outright de‚ance. The injury to Kotowych could have been a catalyst. The more they saw themselves becoming hurt and sick, the quicker it would go. Tunis had said what many of his troops must be thinking. They wanted to stop working. They wanted to get out of here. Hernandez was lucky that word had spread in time for Gilbride to run to 5 and pull him away.

He drained his mug and stood up, losing the heat of his friend’s shoulder. Then he stepped to the door †ap, wrestling with his disappointment. He did not take a weapon. “Thank you,” he said cautiously, looking at the green fabric instead of Gilbride’s face. He tried to put as much meaning as possible into those two simple words.

“Sir,” Gilbride began, rasping.

Hernandez interrupted. “I need some air,” he said. “Just for a minute.” I’m sorry, he almost said, but there were too many ways to interpret an apology. Gilbride’s little sit-down had been an overture. Hernandez was sure of that now.

He drew open the tent’s zipper and ducked through, wincing at the change in temperature. A breeze had come up and the invisible cold swirled in and out of the rough shape of the trench. Then he closed the †ap, half- expecting Gilbride to follow. But no. Thank God. And there was no one waiting outside to stop him. So it was just an overture.

Frank Hernandez hiked away from the bunker, feeling very much like a man making an escape. At best it was only a delay, and quite likely a mistake. He didn’t want Gilbride to misunderstand. It’s a mess. But he didn’t go back. Not yet.

There were more troops out than usual, the work crews just returning. Laden with shovels and rock, they moved in twos and threes, heading for their shelters. Hernandez had no trouble avoiding them. He was trudging up while they were going down, but it felt like the wrong decision. Normally he went out of his way to exchange a few words or a smile, anything to bridge the space between of‚cer and enlisted.

He could see how the insurrection might have started. Each of his sergeants had three bunkers to supervise. That was as many as eighteen troops each, many of whom were on their own every night and for most of the day. If all of those men and women felt a certain way, one voice in opposition would not be enough, especially if that one person spoke up too late. It was a smaller model of what was happening to him now. The in†uence from below was too strong. A smart leader only chose directions in which his followers were willing to go. Pull too hard, and they might break away.

But what choice do we have except to stay? he wondered. Where else do they think we can go? Back to town? They were under orders. They had a job to do, no matter how unlikely it was that they would actually be of use in the air war.

Hernandez stopped beside a hunk of granite. There was a thin, warmer spot against its face and he worked to slow his breathing, taking in the empty sky again. Then he turned and hiked to the nearest summit. The wind tore into him, humming over the low, storm-blasted nubs of rock. His pantlegs and sleeves slapped like †ags.

Talk to Gilbride, he thought. Settle him down. If I can convince him ‚rst, then the two of us can work on everyone else in the command tent. If there’s still time.

If a single trooper was impatient, if any one of them was too angry or tired or careless, it could force his hand. If someone refused an order, what would he do? He couldn’t spare anyone to put people in custody, much less assign guards. Even if the crisis didn’t break his command, it would kill his effectiveness.

Morale was bad now. Imagine if he had ten people locked down in one of the shelters and a rotation of at least two more holding them at gunpoint day after day.

I need more time.

He couldn’t see Leadville beyond the serrated peaks, although at night there was the faintest glow of electricity like a pink fog seated down in the earth. Still, he stayed. The compulsion was too strong. The need for certainty.

Things had been moving fast since the decision to abandon the space station. There had been rumors of a shake-up in the general staff and Hernandez still wondered what had happened to James Hollister. Did he get away or was he in custody? Or shot for treason? Hernandez suspected the president’s council was afraid of a coup.

He also wondered if the vaccine nano really worked. It must. Otherwise the rebels wouldn’t be pressing so hard, burning through their few resources…and without that immunity, Captain Young and the other traitors wouldn’t have run off into the graveyard of Sacramento and refused to surrender. Would they? Maybe they were dead. Maybe they’d been captured and were being held out in California or in Leadville itself. He didn’t know. That information had been tightly suppressed, because if it got out…If it was true…

The loyalty of the diverse troops surrounding Leadville was tied to the city’s riches as well as the habit of command, but mostly to its riches. There was nowhere better to go.

What if people could walk below the barrier again?

No. It was too easy to blame Leadville for everything. Even if the leadership changed, should they really be doing anything differently? Leadville had the best labs on the planet. They should control and develop the vaccine. Hernandez believed this. If the other new nano weapon was real, they should have it as well. The wars on the other side of the planet could spread here too easily. Habitable ground was too scarce, and there had to be a center to