Prodigal (55 page)

“Wait a second,” she protested. “First I’m under arrest, and now you’re taking me
upstairs
? What the hell’s going on, Bostic?”

“For once don’t argue with me, Lea.”

“Why?”

“Because I might still need you,” he said, and would explain no more.

JTOC was bristling with activity, in full combat mode. As Lea and Bostic walked in, the huge overhead screens displayed a range of star charts and near-Earth approach routes, while the operations staff ran from station to station and relayed all the tactical data in a dense stream of technojargon and military acronyms. Directing the effort was Curtis Tambor, the man who had spoken with Bostic earlier—a graying lieutenant general Lea recognized from the few times she had encountered him, and a man with no patience for spooks. He grimaced when he saw Lea enter his domain—but even that couldn’t compare to Lea’s reaction when she saw the officer standing next to Tambor.

Eric Tiernan stepped down from the command post to meet them.

He barely acknowledged Bostic, except to show his disdain. Lea, on the other hand, brought out his guilt—a silent plea for forgiveness, though he didn’t speak of it openly. He just maintained a respectful distance, snapping to attention in the presence of his former commanding officer.

“Major,” Tiernan said formally.

“Not anymore,” Lea replied, trying to hate him. It was a lot harder than she thought it would be. “You made it out of there, I see.”

“The Zone Authority wasn’t too happy about it—but they wanted their fee more than they wanted my head.”

“Good thing you had the money to buy them off.”

Tiernan didn’t defend himself.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Lea.”

She pursed her lips into an ironic smile.

“We’ll see how long that lasts.”

That ended the discussion. Bostic led them up to Tambor’s perch, where the general was busy directing his people over the loudspeaker. “Isolate those transmissions from the background noise,” he said. “See if you can get a clear read on the next satellite pass.” He then turned to the corporate counsel, snapping his heels out of protocol but stopping short of a salute. Tambor had even less use for lawyers than he did for spooks. “Sir, we’ve picked up some intermittent chatter on hyperband, but we’re still trying to punch through some heavy interference. We got bits and pieces of it, though—enough to figure out what it is.”

A long pause followed as the general looked at each of them in turn.

“It’s a distress call.”

Lea took a quick glance at one of the screens, which showed a single large contact approaching from the other side of the moon. It appeared to be a space vessel, lumbering on a course that took it straight toward Earth orbit.

“What is
that
?” Lea asked.

“Listen for yourself,” Tambor said. He piped the signal in over his console speaker, a storm of static with intermittent breaks—random noise to Lea’s ears, until a human voice managed to break through. All of them leaned in close to listen, as the sound of abject fear overcame the distortion—a chilling call for help across the void.

“…anyone…in range…Directorate vessel…approach…”

“Clean that up,” Tambor ordered his communications officer.

With filters applied, the signal cleared up a little.

“Say again…this is…
Almacantar,
declaring an emergency…”

Tiernan frowned.

“Almacantar?”
he asked. “Which vessel is that?”

Lea watched Bostic for an answer, because he seemed to know—but he remained silent, his features rigid.

Tambor nodded at the comm officer, who opened a channel. “
Almacantar,
this is the Joint Technical Operations Command,” he replied. “We read you. What is your emergency?”

The transmission lapsed into a garble, but one final burst came through loud and clear.

“…dead…God, they’re all
dead
—”

Then nothing.

“Get him back,” Tambor ordered.

The comm officer tried to reacquire the signal. He shook his head in frustration. “Unable to get a lock, sir,” he reported, scanning the full spectrum but coming up dry. “Looks like it’s been cut off at the source.”

“Jamming?”

“That would be my guess, General.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lea said. “Why would he jam his own signal?”

Tiernan wandered away from the others, staring into the overhead screens.

“Maybe he didn’t,” he said, and pointed at the central monitor.

They all watched as the approaching contact suddenly broke in two. A small dot branched off from the larger one, picking up speed and leaving the other behind as it plunged toward Earth.

“Breakaway contact,” the comm officer said. “Could be a landing craft, sir. It’s heading in fast.”

“Like a bat out of hell,” Tambor agreed. “Estimated six minutes to atmosphere.”

Bostic jumped in, barely concealing his panic.

“Can you stop it?”

“Scrambling interceptors now,” the general snapped, giving the order. JTOC’s lights dimmed as the alert sirens wailed, putting the facility on a complete war footing. “They’ll hold off the lander, whoever the hell he is. If he doesn’t stand down, they’ll splash his ass before he can do any damage.”

“I don’t know about this,” Lea warned. “Shouldn’t you at least confirm his identity before shooting him down?”

“Almacantar,”
Tiernan added, deep in thought. “Why does that sound so familiar?”

“Call up ship’s registry,” Tambor said. “Crew, mission profile, the whole works.”

Lea scrutinized Bostic, who held his tongue—but if the sweat on his forehead was any indication, he knew far more than he was saying.

“Who are they, Bostic?” she demanded.

He glared back down at her, a corporate man with corporate secrets—and one he could no longer keep.

“Mars,” he said. “The ship came from Mars.”

A feedback pulse nearly ruptured the cockpit speaker, so loud that Nathan’s eardrums almost popped. He yelped in pain, turning the radio down until the sound cut out a few seconds later. All he heard after that was dead air—a monotone of low static, severing the one link he had with the outside world.

“JTOC!” he shouted into the transmitter. “JTOC, this is
Almacantar
! Acknowledge!”

No reply. Nathan clicked through several different frequencies, trying to get a lock on something—
anything
to reestablish contact.

“JTOC! Do you read me? Request permission for emergency landing!”

Again, nothing. Every channel was the same.

“Dammit, JTOC! Where the hell are you?”

The voices were gone. Nathan beat his fists against the canopy, spitting a slew of curses, but none of it did any good. When the outburst ended, he remained all alone. Even this close to home, nobody could hear him.

And nobody was coming to help him.

Nathan cast a hard stare through the glass.
Almacantar
swung by the moon, the craggy gray surface gradually receding away to reveal the blue disc of Earth. He brought up a course projection on the inflight display, and saw that the massive ship had slowed considerably—preparing herself for insertion. The computer calculated a time of just over ninety minutes before orbit, but Nathan decided he couldn’t wait that long.

He had to get back and warn someone.

“Okay,” he breathed, sinking into his chair. He ran a quick diagnostic to make sure that none of the critical systems had been damaged during the jump. All the status lights came back green—though Nathan wished he could be that sure about himself. His hands still shook and his body seemed even more disconnected than before. The instruments blurred in and out of focus, his vision becoming worse the more he tried to fight—but he was determined to fly this thing one more time, even if he had to do it blind.

It’s just the betaflex,
Nathan told himself.
They’ll fix you up back home.

He grabbed the stick and throttled up the main engines. The roar inside the cabin grew louder until
Ghostrider
drowned out her mother ship, the tremor in her decks working its way deep into Nathan’s senses. That power became his own, giving him a tether to reality.

“Just a little longer,” he said, and released the landing gear.

Ghostrider
cut loose. The ship immediately heaved away, pinning Nathan down under the stress of several g forces—drawn into the wash of
Almacantar
’s engines. He yanked back on the stick, standing
Ghostrider
on her tail and ramming the throttle full forward. The sudden burst of thrust worked like a slingshot, flinging the small ship into the void. She began to tumble, maneuvering jets firing as Nathan tried to compensate, the view outside the cockpit turning into a jumbled mass of confusion. He stomped on the rudder pedals, banking left and right as
Ghostrider
lurched from side to side, bouncing him around violently. Nathan’s attention darted between his instruments and the horizon, trying to make sense of both but failing utterly—all while the menacing form of
Almacantar
taunted him in flashes beyond the cockpit glass.

“Come on.” He winced. “You can do this.”

Off in the distance, Earth shot past in a blue flash. Nathan fixed himself on that point, pounding on the thrusters and keeping the planet in his field of vision a bit longer each time.

When it finally settled in the middle, Nathan punched it—opening the engines wide, gradually taking control of his roll and pitch. The altitude indicators on his panel slowly leveled out, the gravity spiral releasing him from its grip. Nathan relaxed as he became weightless again, while
Almacantar
receded like a bad dream.

Up ahead, Earth shimmered in the blackness of space.

The landmasses of the Western Hemisphere loomed large as he approached, the eastern seaboard carving a dark line through a sparkling Atlantic coast.
Ghostrider
buffeted when Nathan put on even more speed, easing off only when he hit the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Hot gases separated along the leading edge of
Ghostrider
’s wings, flooding the cabin with a pale orange glow. The stick became even heavier in his hands, sluggish under the increased drag of reentry.

Nathan tried the radio again.

“JTOC, this is
Ghostrider,
declaring an emergency. Do you copy?”

Distant whistles and crackling static mixed with sporadic voice contact. Nathan listened closely for any signs of cadence, but there just wasn’t enough to get through.

“Say again, JTOC. Can you read me?”

A low howl pierced the ambient noise, but nothing else.

Nathan snapped off the transmission as the air caught fire all around him.
Ghostrider
plunged into the atmosphere while he held on, wrapping the ship in an envelope of heat and ionization—shielding him from the terror he left behind.

Or so he prayed.

Daylight broke around the ship in a dazzling pastel blue, towering heads of cumulus spreading outward in every direction.
Ghostrider
sliced through the clouds, riding a long trail of vapor that traced her path across the sky. Nathan had to shield his eyes against the blunt sunshine that streamed through the canopy, his other hand working the stick to test out the control surfaces. The foils responded, putting
Ghostrider
into a lazy turn. Nathan watched the compass until it pointed dead east, where he picked up a Port Authority landing beacon.

“Thank God,” he whispered.

Nathan took the ship down past ten thousand meters, on a glide slope toward Incorporated airspace. As the clouds parted, he got his first glimpse of the coast—the skyline of Manhattan just off to the northeast, its spires reaching into the heavens. Harsh light glinted off the stratotowers in ominous welcome, but to Nathan there could be no more beautiful sight. He banked over to an intercept course, lining up with the beacon and heading in.

Nathan made sure that
Ghostrider
’s IFF transponder was broadcasting, then opened up a priority channel. “To anyone listening,” he said, “this is Lieutenant Commander Nathan Straka, CSD vessel
Almacantar,
flight designation
Ghostrider
. I am inbound heavy and request immediate assistance. Please respond.”