Coyote Rising (46 page)

K
AFZIEL
, A
SMODEL
5,
C
.
Y
. 06/0503—W
EST
C
HANNEL
, N
EW
F
LORIDA

Darkness lay heavy upon the north shore; sunrise was still a half
hour away, and the stars had yet to disappear from the night sky. Bear hung low above the western horizon, its ring-plane rising above the channel. The winter snow had melted a few weeks earlier, and a cool breeze stirred the tall grasses of the marshlands surrounding the inlet of North Creek; the grasshoarders were still asleep in their nests, though, and the boids had yet to begin to hunt. A new day was coming to this part of Coyote as it always had, in peaceful serenity, heretofore untouched by the hand of man.

Now there were new sounds: murmured voices, wooden paddles faintly bumping against canoe gunnels. From time to time, thin beams of light moved across black waters, briefly exploring the shoreline before disappearing once more. Tiny wavelets lapped against the sandy beach, forced ahead by low shapes that glided quietly toward shore.

As the lead canoe approached the inlet, the figure hunched in its bow stroked in reverse, gently slowing his craft. The keel softly crunched against sand, and he briefly thrust the paddle downward to test the depth. Then, carefully balancing himself upon the gunnels, he stood up and stepped over the side, his boots splashing through calf-deep water.

Pulling a light from his jacket pocket, Carlos aimed it toward the channel and flashed three times. A moment passed, then from the darkness there was a rapid succession of flashes in response. Putting the light away, he took a moment to look around. He was almost home. And this time, he was bringing a few friends with him. . . .

“I could use a hand here.” Chris had climbed out and was wading ashore. “Unless you’re too busy admiring the view, of course.”

“Sorry.” Carlos turned to help him haul the canoe ashore. “Never seen this part of the island before.”

“Who has?” Chris bent down to loosen the ropes of the tarp covering their gear. “But you look like you’re posing for a picture. Like Washington crossing the . . . y’know, whatever.”

“Hey, if you’ve got a camera . . .”

“Left it behind, George. Maybe next time.”

The rest of the flotilla was approaching the shore: canoes, pirogues, a couple of keelboats, more than three dozen boats in all. The thin light cast by masked lamps illuminated shadowed figures as they climbed overboard to pull their craft onto dry land. They moved quickly, wasting as little time as possible; with sunrise fast approaching, they’d have to hurry to make camp before daybreak.

Over the course of the last nine days, eighty-six men and women, from settlements all across Midland, had navigated the Medsylvania Channel from their departure point at New Boston. They’d traveled under the cover of darkness, sleeping during the day under camouflage nets so as not to be spotted by low-flying aircraft. Two nights ago, Red Company crossed the confluence of the East Channel, where the Medsylvania Channel became the West Channel, until they reached the northeastern tip of New Florida. From there, North Creek flowed south to Sand Creek, which in turn led straight to Liberty. Carlos noticed that they all kept their voices low, as if they were expecting a Union Guard patrol somewhere nearby. Liberty was a long way from there, yet no one was taking any chances.

Hearing someone coming up behind him, he looked around to see his sister walking toward him. “Spotted a small blackwood grove about fifty yards that way,” Marie said quietly. “I think we can make camp there.”

“Very good. Take as much equipment as we need, leave everything else here.” Carlos turned to two men standing nearby. “You and you . . . pull out the nets and start covering the boats. I want everything under wraps before the sun comes up.”

“Got it, Rigil,” one of them said. More than half of Red Company still referred to him as Rigil Kent, the alias he’d chosen for himself long
ago, even though they now knew his real name.
Just as well,
he thought.
If this fails, that’ll be probably be the name they carve into my tombstone
.

That was an uncomfortable notion, so he sought to avoid it. “You got the satphone?” he asked Chris.

Chris had just unloaded their packs. He glanced at his watch, then gazed up at the night sky. “Little early for that, don’t you think?
Alabama
isn’t due over for another hour or so. We don’t even know if they . . .”

“You’re right. Just skittish, that’s all.” He hesitated. “Wish I knew where the other guys are.”

Chris bent over one of the packs, loosened its flap, and dug inside until he found the satphone. “Relax,” he said softly as he handed it to Carlos. “You’ve done as much as you can. It’s up to them now.”

Carlos nodded. A hundred and seventy miles southeast of their position, Blue Company would be paddling across the East Channel, making landfall at the Garcia Narrows. A couple of thousand miles away, White Company was hiding somewhere along the eastern coast of Midland, watching the bluffs of Hammerhead across the Midland Channel. And meanwhile, out in space . . .

“If you’re going to pitch this one . . .” Chris began.

Carlos glanced at him, not knowing at first what he was talking about, until he realized that he’d been holding the satphone for a long time. Chris was remembering the day, long ago, when Carlos had unwisely thrown a satphone into Sand Creek. “If I did, would you . . .”

“Hey, what’s that?” Chris pointed past him. “Look over there.”

Carlos turned around. For a moment, he didn’t see what his friend had spotted, then he saw it: an orange-red radiance low upon the eastern horizon, faintly illuminating the undersides of morning clouds. For a moment, he thought they’d miscalculated the time before local sunrise. But dawn wasn’t due for at least another half hour, and, although the glow flickered faintly, it didn’t subside as heat lightning would. Whatever it was, it was coming from Midland.

And suddenly, he realized what he was seeing.

“Oh, God,” he whispered. “Not now. Please, not now . . .”

0532—CSS
P
LYMOUTH

“Range three hundred yards and closing.” Kim Newell barely
looked up from her controls; her gaze was locked on the computer screens, her left hand steady upon the yoke as she gently fired a quick burst from the forward RCRs. “On course for rendezvous. Stand by for docking maneuver.”

“Roger that.” Robert Lee instinctively reached up to tap his headset mike before he remembered that there was no reason to activate the ship-to-ship radio. Indeed, there was little for him to do at that point; Kim was in the left seat, and she knew the
Plymouth
much better than he did. All he was doing was riding shotgun.

So he gazed up through the canopy and watched as the
Alabama
steadily moved closer. It didn’t look the same as the last time he’d seen her—over four and a quarter years ago by the LeMarean calendar, he reminded himself, or nearly thirteen years by Gregorian reckoning. Five hundred feet in length, the starship filled the cockpit windows; five of the seven crew modules that had once formed a ring around its forward section were missing—they’d been jettisoned shortly after
Alabama
had arrived—and the shuttle cradles along its central boom were empty. The aft navigation beacon had burned out, leaving the engine section in the dark, and long-term exposure to solar radiation and micrometeorites had warped and pitted some of the hull plates. The ship had survived a 230- year voyage from Earth, yet it was meant to travel between the stars, not linger in high orbit. After so many years of being subjected to the effects of space weather, the giant vessel was slowly falling apart, like a sailing ship left to rot at the wharf.

All the same, though, it was good to see the old lady again. As Kim coaxed the
Plymouth
closer, Lee felt his throat grow tight. It had been a long while since he’d considered himself to be a starship captain. Now, at least for a brief time, he would be the commanding officer of the URSS
Alabama
once more.

He felt a hand upon his shoulder. “A little worse for wear,” Dana Monroe murmured, floating next to him in the narrow cockpit, “but she’s still there.” She gazed up at the ship. “Glad you made the trip?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Lee took his mate’s hand, gave it a squeeze. “Ready to play chief engineer again?”

She gave him a hard look. “
Play
chief engineer? Sir, that is an insult.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to question your professional—”

“Oh, cut it out.” She leaned forward to give him a kiss on the cheek. “But if it’s play you’ve got in mind,” she whispered in his ear, “if we get a chance maybe we can see if there’s still a bunk where we can—”

“Range fifty feet and closing.” Kim nudged the thruster bar again. “Six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . .” There was a sudden jar as
Plymouth
’s dorsal hatch mated with
Alabama
’s docking collar. “Rendezvous complete, Captain.”

The maneuver caused Dana to bump the back of her head against the canopy. She muttered an obscenity beneath her breath, but Kim didn’t notice; she let out her breath, then reached forward to shut down the engines. Lee gazed at her with admiration. Kim claimed that flying a shuttle was like riding a bicycle, but they both knew that operating a spacecraft was far more complex than that; considering how long it had been since she’d last piloted
Plymouth
, her performance had been outstanding. True, she had been rehearsing this mission for the past two months, borrowing time from her farm chores to perform flight simulations in the cockpit, yet the fact remained that
Plymouth
hadn’t moved an inch since it had been covered with camouflage nets. In that time, Kim had been more concerned with raising a little boy with her husband. And now that Tom Shapiro was gone . . . but it wasn’t the time to mourn for lost friends.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Ever since they’d lifted off from Defiance six hours before, they had subconsciously reverted to their former
United Republic Service ranks. Old habits die hard, even after so many years. “How’s the airlock pressure?”

Kim looked up to check a gauge. “Equalized. We’re okay to pop the hatch.”

Lee unbuckled his harness and pushed himself out of his seat. Kim followed him. Dana had already left the cockpit, floating back to the passenger compartment to undo the ceiling hatch. She pulled it open, then moved aside, allowing him captain’s privilege of being the first person aboard.

Lee squirmed up the narrow manhole and found the zebra-stripped panel that covered the controls for the inner hatch. Flipping it open, he pushed a couple of buttons. The airlock hissed slightly as it irised open, revealing darkness beyond. Deck H5 was pitch-black save for a couple of small red diodes on a wall panel on the opposite side of the ready room. The air was cold, with a faintly musty odor. With the heat turned down, the ship was colder than he’d expected; he was glad he was wearing a catskin jacket and trousers rather than his old URS jumpsuit.

He unclipped a penlight from his belt, then glided over to the wall panel. Recessed lights within the low ceiling flickered to life, revealing the narrow compartment. Everything looked much the same as he’d left it, down to the empty hardsuits stowed in their apertures and the fungal growth they’d discovered on the consoles shortly after they’d awoken from biostasis.