Ghost Fleet : A Novel of the Next World War (9780544145979) (45 page)

Hu's armpits flooded with sweat, and her stomach tightened. She blinked to make sure it was real and not a hallucination. It had to be a prank. She'd learned about them in the training courses, but they had been offline for over a decade.

She lifted up her visor and cast a glance to the auditorium floor below to see if her commanding officer saw what she was seeing. No; he was engrossed in the slow unwrapping of a stick of gum. The others seated around him were equally oblivious, a symphony of helmets and fingers bobbing up and down and back and forth as they proceeded with the attack-prep command.

Hu pulled her visor down, projecting herself back into the virtual world. Her fingers began to dance again, each ring in action, a force command overriding the album's operating system and terminating the program while simultaneously starting a full-system verification.

Hu violently punched and pulled the space in front of her as the multiple commands spun out. She felt angry but exhilarated, her stim pump kicking in when the new commands initiated. A wash of euphoria came over her, stronger than she'd ever felt before.

As the album closed at her command, another white-masked avatar appeared, this time hovering over the Akron file she had pulled from the target library. Hu's fingers danced, another wash of euphoria coming with each command movement.

Just as her counterattack made this new mask disappear, the technical specifics of the Akron target re-emerged. Then the mask morphed and divided into two identical masks. Fingers dancing in midair, she attacked again. As the masks split into four, Hu felt another pump of stim kicking in; such intense happiness. Ah, that was it. Each action just created more masks, her mind realized. She knew she should stop, but the smiling mask was taunting her. Whoever was behind it needed to be taught a lesson, plus, her body craved just one more wash of the stim that came from each command.

Soon there were thousands of the white masks washing out the once-beautiful digital landscape. It was as if the entire virtual world had risen up in revolt. But Hu had never felt so wonderful.

The commanding officer below was just starting to chew his gum when he noticed that the helmets above him in the amphitheater rows were not swaying in their usual patterns. Some were tilted in evident confusion; others rocked back and forth violently. He panned the room and saw one helmet tipped to the side, its wearer's head lolling.

Hu's body slumped off the chair, and her helmet bounced on the wood floor; the officer didn't know whether to run to her or the system control station. Before he could decide, the auditorium's projector lit up the center of the room. A massive white blaze of light crystalized into a holograph, the pinpricks of light forming a smiling black-and-white mask.

A digitized voice boomed across the room's speakers and into each of the linked helmets:

“We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget . . .

And we are back!”
⁴⁷

Then the room went dark.

Directorate Command, Honolulu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone

So the Russian had really done it. General Yu's aide-de-camp had seen them on the security camera, and her identity had been confirmed, but he hadn't been truly sure until he saw them up close.

The thought knotted the major's stomach as he led the two of them into the general's office. He watched, his hand on his pistol, as the Russian pulled out a key and handcuffed her to one of the wooden office chairs in front of the general's desk. It made the major doubt again whether it really was her, whether the tests had placed the right person at the scene of those horrors. She was curled up tightly in the seat, knees pulled up to her chest, her posture that of a girl who was truly broken. The Russian ripped her wig off with a flourish, revealing her bald head, and tossed the fake hair onto her knees. She just studied the floor in submission.

This made the aide worry. When radioed the news of the Russian's unexpected arrival with the girl, General Yu had ordered them brought to his office. But now the aide was uncertain how the general would react to her in person. She didn't look the way he or, he guessed, the general would imagine.

“Can you get us some water?” asked the Russian. The woman kept herself curled up in a fetal position in her chair. She seemed scared out of her wits, literally.

“I'm sorry, Colonel, but that is not possible. General Yu will be here any minute; there's no time.”

“Damn it, she's about to pass out from dehydration. We need to get some water and stims into her.”

The aide thought it over, eyeing Markov, who looked like he might be a bit drunk, or at least battling a hangover, as he leaned against the wall. The aide was still mulling it over when he heard loud footsteps in the corridor and turned, ready to greet General Yu. He could hear the general bellowing at a young communications lieutenant to recheck the connections to Hainan; they had been problematic all day. The general blamed his underlings' incompetence, but the aide assumed it was insurgent sabotage yet again. He also guessed the general wanted the young officer's eyes and ears to be somewhere other than at this meeting.

When the general entered, the Russian spoke first; a mistake. “I've done it,” Markov said with a note of weary triumph.

Yu nearly exploded, just as the aide had feared he would. “You've done it?” he said. “How many of my men died because you failed to catch her sooner? And now you want credit for her capture. You think we will give you a medal, that it will somehow save you?”

The general started to laugh. “Let me take a look at this killer you have brought in, and then we can discuss exactly what you deserve.”

He dropped to one knee in front of the girl, who kept her gaze on the ground.

“Look at me, girl,” ordered Yu as he leaned in closer. The girl moved slightly in her seat and then her head rose. The sight of her made the aide lose his breath. Her expression shifted instantly from meek to primal, her pupils almost eclipsing the irises of her eyes. She stared directly at General Yu, who studied her quizzically, their faces inches apart.

Then the mass of black hair on her knees stirred, and the wig flashed up as she wrapped it around the general's neck and tipped her chair over onto its side, using its weight to topple the general's bulk. They went down in a tumble of arms and legs. General Yu staggered up with the girl's feet pressed against his side and both of her arms pulling on the rope of hair she'd wrapped like a noose around his throat. The wooden chair she was still cuffed to swung like a pendulum, adding its weight to the pull.

Before the aide could rush over to help the general, he felt a press of cold metal on his temple. He turned to see the Russian holding an American-made SIG Sauer pistol, the general's trophy from the cabinet.

“No, no. Leave them be. I'm quite curious to see how this plays out,” Markov said.

Tiangong-3 Space Station

“He could be lying, sir,” said Best.

“It is the truth,” said Chang. “We need to leave. There are maybe five rotations until the station orbit deteriorates enough to burn.”

“You are telling me that I am about to lose a lot of money!” Cavendish screamed. “Why did you do it? Why destroy
my
station?”

For ten seconds, the only sound in the station was the zipping up of the last body bag. The others were already sealed and affixed with tape to the station's wall.

“It was my duty. I had to do it,” said Chang quietly, speaking now to Best, who was clearly a soldier of some sort. He had the bulk for it, but it was more in how relaxed he looked after the battle, his eyes closed as he savored a stick of gum he chewed with steady precision. The slight one—Sir Aeric, he called himself—must be something else. He screamed more like an angry shopkeeper than a soldier.

“Sir, we have met the objective,” said Best. “It's a shame about the prize. But you know, we can do it all over again.”

“Yes, perhaps the Russians will be more reasonable,” said Cavendish, calming down. “And I'll offer to hire them, not just ask for their surrender. Carrot
and
stick this time. How about that?”

“It's worth a try, sir,” said Best. “But we need to get off the station now. This part of space is going to light up as the American ASAT missiles start knocking down the Chinese and Russian birds. Then they'll try to launch their satellites, and the Directorate will do the same. With no one commanding space, each side will just knock the other's satellites down as fast as they're launched. Pretty soon any orbit above the Pacific is going to be one big cloud of space junk.”

“Makes you wish you worked for someone who had the foresight to invest in the rocket-fuel business,” said Cavendish, starting to calculate a new set of gains. “To the
Tallyho
, then! Mr. Tick, are you up for it?”

“I'm feeling no pain, sir,” said Tick. The commando's forehead was swollen and his eyes were bloodshot.

“You're a good man, Tick,” said Cavendish, now studying Chang. “Best, get the men through the airlock. I will be the last to leave.”

“Yes, sir,” said Best. “And, sir, I think we finally have your call sign. How does Zorro sound?”

“Splendid,” said Cavendish, smiling. “Absolutely splendid.”

A flash of relief washed across Chang's face. It felt like the tension in the room had completely lifted. Chang started to float toward an emergency suit, but the slight one in charge, the shopkeeper, shook his head. In his hand was one of their electric pistols.

“No, not you. I warned you that if there was any resistance, you all would die. I didn't get so far in business without being a man of my word.”

Chang didn't have time to protest that it hadn't been his decision to resist, that it had all been Huan's fault, before the 7.5 million volts from the Taser dart entered his body.

USS
Zumwalt
, Gulf of Alaska, Pacific Ocean

Captain Jamie Simmons stood in the lee of the helicopter bay and scanned the blue sky. Even with the chill that grew as they moved farther north, the rhythmic rise and fall of the following Pacific swell made the moment wholly pleasant. It was the kind of beauty that unexpectedly wormed its way into the experience of war.

“Captain, visual IFF signal just confirmed it's ours,” said Seaman Eric Shear. Simmons took the oversize binoculars. There was an electronic icon in the viewfinder that prompted him to turn to the port side and look slightly up toward the incoming plane, three miles out and closing quickly. A repeating triple dash of lights confirmed the IFF—the identification, friend or foe—signal.

“We'd be dead by now if it wasn't,” said Simmons. “Get the recovery crew ready.”

“Already standing by, sir,” said Shear.

The form of a gray General Atomics Avenger stealth drone
⁴⁸
appeared behind the lights. It moved fast and low, lower than any human pilot would dare take a plane, fifteen feet above the sea, the splash from the highest waves licking at its underbelly. The pilotless jet's autonomous flight was nearing its terminus. With no other way to securely communicate with the fleet, Pacific Command had resorted to using what was essentially a twenty-million-dollar carrier pigeon. The drone's first pass over the
Zumwalt
crossed the stern fifty feet off, far too close for Simmons's comfort. As it pushed past, the jet waggled its wings slightly. At least somebody among the mission's programmers had a sense of humor.

Tracking the next pass, Simmons saw the doors covering the internal weapons bay open. The jet slowed and ejected two bright yellow canisters, then it powered away to the east and dropped canisters to the rest of the ships in the task force. After that it went to full power and dove straight down into the Pacific. The drone disappeared in a violent splash, the sound of its impact lost in the faint wind.

The canisters gleamed as they were hauled aboard the
Zumwalt
and carried into the hangar bay, where a pair of techs disarmed the scuttle devices that would have melted the contents into a toxic mess with a chemical spray if someone had used the wrong access code.

“Ever think it would come to this, Captain?” said Cortez, eyeing the stack of foil packets.

“Never. When's the last time you opened an actual letter, XO?” said Simmons, tearing open the foil and beginning to read the cover memo outlining the ops plan. “If Congress had known this war was coming, I bet they never would have shut down the U.S. Postal Service.”

“Some of these kids, I doubt they've ever held a letter, at least one written by another person,” said Cortez.

“I like how you refer to them as kids. Shows how far you've come, Horatio. Shows why I know you'll do the right thing in whatever comes next.” Jamie paused, letting that sink in. He looked back down and read further, leaving Cortez standing awkwardly in silence. Then he folded the paper and returned it to the envelope.

“Pep talk's over. We need to get to the bridge.”

Cortez looked back quizzically.

“PACOM reports Directorate space-based ISR has been neutralized, meaning we just disappeared from their overhead surveillance. There's a new set of mission orders and a new destination. You can let the crew know they can put their mittens away. Full sprint south. It's time to see if this ship is as stealthy as they say.”

Kahuku, Oahu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone