Prodigal (60 page)

“See you on the roof,” she said.

Avalon complied, leaving with the guards and not saying a word.

“I don’t trust that woman,” Novak said. “A killer is still a killer, even if you find yourselves on the same side.”

“I don’t trust her either,” Lea agreed, “but if Avalon wanted to kill me, she would have done it by now. Besides, if this all goes to hell, we may need her as a bargaining chip.”

“Already planning for failure,” the GME said. “That doesn’t sound very promising.” She scooped the vial off the table, bringing it over to Lea. “The tip is spring-loaded with a hypospray. All you need to do is jab it into an exposed area—preferably the neck. The virus will inject itself on contact.”

Lea slipped the tiny cylinder into her pocket. “I’ll try not to use it.”

Novak drew Lea into a sad embrace. “Do be careful.”

“I will,” Lea replied, as the two let go of each other. “Keep an eye on things until I get home, okay?”

The GME nodded. With nothing else she could say, Novak walked away and never looked back. Tambor watched the door swing shut behind her, a stark silence falling upon the briefing room.

“You picked some good people,” he observed.

“The best,” Lea said.

The roof access door opened into a blinding sunset and a churning wind, the high-pitched whine of turbines descending from the skies above. A military hovercraft swooped down on the landing pad, jostling itself through all the shear before coming to rest at the end of the long docking tunnel, its engines slowing to idle as the belly hatch popped open. A uniformed crewman appeared there, waving his passengers over. Tiernan went first, with Nathan close behind, both running for the ship and quickly climbing inside. Avalon, meanwhile, went with Lea—the two of them walking with Tambor in tow, the general shouting to be heard above the ambient roar.

“Norfolk has the LSRV standing by,” he said. “They’ve loaded six heavy charges of covalent explosive, rigged to a remote detonator. At a bare minimum, our engineers say you’ll need
three
of them planted in just the right spots to bring that ship down. The others are for insurance. You reading me, Major?”

“Loud and clear, sir,” Lea said as they arrived on the landing pad. Avalon disappeared into the hatch while Lea stayed behind to give the general a salute. “Wish me luck.”

“You’ll need it,” Tambor said, saluting back. “We’ll get up there as soon as we can.”

“I know you will.”

He clapped Lea on the shoulder.

“Give ’em hell, Major.”

Lea smiled. She then jumped on the ladder and crawled into the hovercraft, followed by the crewman. He resealed the hatch as she joined the others, who had already strapped themselves in. Avalon sat at the aft end of the compartment, speaking to no one and barely acknowledging Lea’s presence. Lea responded in kind, moving past her and crossing in front of Tiernan on her way forward. He reached out and gently placed his hand on her arm. Lea, meanwhile, froze in her tracks and glared at him.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is just another mission, Lieutenant.”

“I know,” Tiernan replied. “I’m not asking for anything. I just want you to know, whatever it takes—I’ll get you through this.”

“I can take care of myself.”

She yanked her arm away, falling into the seat next to Nathan. As she buckled herself in, he acted none the wiser—though Lea could tell he was curious about the bad blood between her and Tiernan.

“It’s a long story,” she said.

“Hope I get to hear about it.”

The engines revved up again, flooding the compartment with a muffled rumble. Lea felt a swell of gravity as the roof dropped off beneath them, hot columns of jet exhaust pushing the hovercraft into the sky. She craned her neck to get a look through a nearby porthole, watching as the CSS building peeled away and revealed greater Manhattan—a city far different from the one she had known yesterday. The others had the same reaction when they saw it for themselves: a vacant, helpless shock magnified by the disaster that unfolded beyond the glass.

The pulser grid—once a constant, glistening web of laser light over the city—was gone, lost amid a maelstrom of pollution and smoke. Fires burned across the entire island, stratotowers venting flames from huge gashes torn by some massive impact. Pulsers, spiraling out of control after the grid failed, had probably slammed into the buildings on their way down—eventually tumbling to the street, where an inferno raged. Power seemed to be out all over the city, with only isolated pockets of light scattered throughout. Even at full reserve capacity, Manhattan would soon become a dark, primitive hole under the sway of orange firelight—the same as the whole East Coast, perhaps even the rest of the world.

The Axis didn’t exist anymore. Lyssa had killed it.

And Lea had made it possible.

She settled back into her chair for the short ride to Norfolk. As the city withdrew into the darkness of the Atlantic, Lea wondered how Trevor Bostic would explain their actions today. In the unlikely event that she survived to tell the tale, the corporate counsel would most certainly try to place the blame solely at her feet—and that was fine. Lea had enough on Bostic to take him down with her. She just hoped that she lived long enough to bear witness to his execution, right before the blade fell on her.

It would almost be worth it.

Almost.

The ground crews at Norfolk rolled a tiny ship from one of the enormous hangars that lined the airfield, swarming over its hull with frenetic purpose. They finished their final inspection of the LSRV as Lea’s hovercraft touched down a short distance away, her team scrambling outside and running across the tarmac. Lea kept pace with them, sticking close to Avalon, while Tiernan took the lead. At the same time, the ground crew chief ran out to meet them. He gave Lea a brief salute, then escorted her people the rest of the way.

“Who’s gonna be flying this bird?” he asked.

“I am,” Avalon said. “What’s her configuration?”

The chief noticed her sensuit and her eyes, and flashed Avalon an odd look—but he didn’t ask any more questions.

“The basic design is built on a T-62 spaceframe,” he explained, while Avalon scanned the ship with her sensors. “If you’ve ever flown a military trainer, it’s the same thing. We just removed the weapons to make room in the fuselage and fitted the ventral hull with a universal docking collar.”

“I’m familiar with the class.”

“Good. Then you should have no problem with the controls. It’s all hydraulic assist, but no fly-by-wire. If you want her to respond, start yanking and banking. Straight line, she’ll do most of the flying for you.”

Avalon nodded, then walked over to another crewman, who waited with an emergency EVA suit. The chief handed Lea one as well. Designed for limited exposure, the suits were less bulky than the full-sized outfit, and much easier to move around in.

“You got twenty minutes of oxygen on the main tank,” he explained while Lea put hers on, “five minutes on the reserve. After that you’re breathing CO
₂
, so don’t push it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Chief.”

“I also stowed a few pulse pistols on board, underneath the passenger seats. They’re only good for a few shots at close range—so if you gotta use them, make each one count.”

“Got it,” Lea affirmed. “Anything else I should know?”

“Yeah,” the chief said, handing her a small device. A green LED flashed on its face, a single button protected by a flip cap. “That’s the hot switch for the explosives. We didn’t have time to override the safety locks, so you’ll need to get to a minimum distance of two klicks before you can activate the detonators. Pop the cap, hit the button once to arm. When the light turns red, hit it again to set off the charge.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” the chief told her, then hustled Lea into the ship. The LSRV was tiny compared to the hovercraft, the interior not much more than a narrow cylinder. A stack of packages labeled DANGER—HIGH EXPLOSIVES took up most of the space in back. Lea positioned herself between them and shuffled forward, stepping over the docking hatch on her way to the cockpit. There, Avalon was already in the pilot’s chair, affixing a minicom to her ear. Nathan and Tiernan sat behind her, leaving the copilot’s seat empty for Lea.

“Welcome aboard,” Nathan said.

The ground crew scattered as Lea strapped herself in. Avalon flipped a series of switches on the control panel, engaging the main engines. A surge of power reverberated through the deck as they came to life, which intensified to a dull roar—the boxes in back shaking under the increased stress. Nathan looked aft to make sure everything was tied down, obviously nervous.

“Relax,” Tiernan told him. “Covalent munitions are very stable.”

“Think I read that on a tombstone somewhere.”

Tiernan laughed.

“Norfolk tower, Norfolk tower,” Avalon hailed. “This is Special Air Mission, designation one. Request permission for liftoff.”

“Roger, SAM1,” came a weak and distorted reply. “Wish I could say we have you, but we’re all in the dark over here. Proceed at your discretion.”

“Copy that, tower.” Avalon eased the throttles forward, the tarmac rolling beneath them. “Heading toward runway two-niner.”

“Confirmed visual. You’re all clear.”

The LSRV bumped up and down, onto the runway, smoothing out as she gathered velocity. White stripes on pavement became a blur in the landing lights, air and space above beckoning.

“Godspeed, SAM1.”

Avalon pulled back on the stick and punched a hole in the night.

Twilight tapered off into a midnight blue, stars breaching the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere. Those wispy gases quickly receded into memory, unfurling a tapestry of deepest black outside the cockpit window. A blue afterglow crept along the surface of the glass, a reminder of Earth’s close presence behind—but for now, all Lea saw was the icy reaches of space. The beauty of that void struck her in a way she didn’t expect, like the euphoria that had entwined her the first time she projected her mind into the Axis: a feeling of complete solitude, standing on a precipice of limitless unknowns.

“Entering orbit,” Avalon said, reducing power.

Maneuvering jets nudged the LSRV to port, her main engines pushing her on a parallel course. The disc of Earth filled the window next to the pilot’s seat, blue fading to brown and finally to black, its edge ablaze with the fire of a retreating sun. Normally, the East Coast metroplex would have carved a path along the Atlantic basin—brilliantly outlining the cities of New York, Boston, and Washington, all the way down to Miami. Now all of them were dark, with only sporadic flares of light to show they had ever existed. Lea could hardly fathom the change. It was like staring back through time.

“My God,” Nathan whispered, echoing her impression. “It’s all gone.”

“Anything directly tied to the Axis,” Lea said. “There might be a few isolated subnets that are still operational—but it’s only a matter of time before Lyssa gets around to them.”

Nathan placed his hand against the glass.

“Total singularity.”

“That was the idea,” she added, wondering if Cray was part of it. With Lyssa’s ports wide open, there was nothing to stop him from slipping into the Axis with her—if that was what he wanted. “Now we just have to find a way to contain her.”

“Is that even possible?”

Lea shook her head slowly.

“I wish I knew,” she said, her voice drifting on a soft beep from the navigation panel. Lea checked on the display, which showed a large contact at less than a hundred kilometers. She augmented the graphic, which re-formed into the ungainly dimensions of a commercial towing vessel. “Bearing zero-zero-nine,” she told Avalon, peering across the distance until she caught a glint of metal against the fabric of night.

Nathan leaned forward to see it for himself.

“There she is,” he said.

Almacantar
loomed dead ahead, the surface of her hull gleaming in the moonlight. Nathan turned pale at the sight of her floating in the distance—a ghost ship ferrying the souls of his crewmates on an endless journey.

“Two-point-eight minutes to intercept,” Avalon said.

The oncoming vessel grew larger as they closed in, her bulky profile swelling to colossal proportions. Lea had no idea how big
Almacantar
really was—not until the ship hovered above the LSRV, blocking out almost everything around her. Avalon made a single pass, falling into
Almacantar
’s shadow as she headed for the engineering section. Lea searched the empty windows for signs of movement but found nothing. Even across the vacuum of space, the ship reeked of death.

“No visible activity,” Avalon said. “Does the vessel have any defensive capabilities?”

“No,” Nathan answered. “We had a few small arms on board, but nothing they could use to take a shot at us.”

“What’s the best spot to set down?”

“Right there,” Nathan said, pointing amidships just forward of the hybrid engine mounts. “If we can blow a big enough hole in main engineering, the reactors should trip into overload before the core can scram the system. They’ll incinerate the entire ship.”