Enemy (4 page)

     Indeed. And Magdalene..?

     “She’s been wounded. Her beacon was very weak. It wouldn’t be a good idea to—”

     ((wounded? how seriously is she hurt? can she make it back?))

     “Simon, we don’t have time for this.”

     ((i’ll
make
the time for it, hannah.))

     “Fine. Go get her, but be careful. We don’t know how many Enemy that When holds.”

     ((yes, commander.))

     “Then it’s set. Engage Shadow drives.”

     Within the white place, she watched as Simon’s forces faded from existence.

    
So Magdalene is still alive... That will have to be remedied.

      “And there she goes.”

     The ASCL Freeman Teller drifted with increasing speed beneath the surface of the lake. The lifecraft stood by and watched as their mothership went vertical and slid into the depths. Spotlights swept the area, and the small vessels surveyed the dark waters for overboard seamen.

     “How many?”

     “Still over thirty men unaccounted for, sir. Tracking chips aren’t responding.”

     “Keep looking. How far away is the Indomitable?”

     “Closing quickly. That’s her to the northeast.”

     Across the expanse of the lake, they observed a fast-approaching vessel. It was the same model as the Teller, one of the Containment Line. The Indomitable cruised quickly and quietly up to the impact zone, and flooded the area with light. The deck guns swept back and forth in readiness.

     The Indomitable would find and destroy whatever had sunk the Teller.

     Harkness. 2:30 A.M.

     The eight dark figures that emerged from the lake surfaced half a mile down the beach from where Buddy McClure’s broken body lay. They were cold, wet, exhausted, and confused, now trapped on a world that was thousands of years younger than the worlds they had known.

     In silence, they faced the lake as Reynald activated a small control panel on his forearm. A bright flash came from within the lake as a miniature quantum singularity engulfed the lifeboat.

     At first, it appeared that nothing had happened. The vessel that had come to the aid of the sunken ship was still visible out there, but then, for an impossible instant, the very surface of the lake seemed to bulge outward and contract back in. With an ear-splitting roar, the explosion rose to the surface, incinerating the Indomitable and the lifecraft of the Freeman Teller almost immediately. There was little debris, and even that was quickly pulled under. The surface of the lake returned to its original placid state.

     The men turned from the lake and began to walk.

     “We’ll scan for Magdalene.” Reynald did not sound hopeful. “I saw her come down behind us. She can’t be that far away.”

     “Do you think anyone saw us come down?”

     “I don’t know, but someone is bound to be suspicious when that boat doesn’t report in. Let’s get as far away as possible.”

     They slid into the night.

     “Has the Containment Line reported anything?”

     “Nothing, sir. We have five vessels closing on the site.”

     “How could something have slipped through the Line?”

     “Mr. President, we haven’t ruled out a mechanical failure. It could just be —”

     Jennings slammed his fist to the table, covered with satellite reports and faxes. “Two of our ships are gone, Cervera. That’s over three hundred of our sailors. This isn’t an accident. Someone is attacking us.”

     “But—”

     “No buts. I want that area secured. Tell the Harkness Chickenshit Rescue Squad to pull back from the site. Have the Line close in. I want the whole damned county sealed off. No one gets into or out of Harkness, Michigan. That site has to be secure.”

     “Mr. President—”

     “Cervera, would you like me to relieve you of duty? God knows I’ve wanted to for years. Don’t give me a reason to now, Tony, when I need your cooperation the most. Someone’s trying to start a goddamned war out there. Secure the area.”

     “Yes, sir.”

     Jennings stood in front of the globe projection.

     “This is getting too damned out of hand.”

     Cervera glared coldly at the president.

     “Yes. Sir.”

     Magdalene:

     She felt the Shadow tech sweep over her, and despaired as she calculated the distance to Reynald. The last survivors of her crew had crashed half a world away.

     She activated a homing beacon.

     A silent alarm. A dull thudding pain. Waning energy.

     Magdalene retreated to the black of sleep.

     Reynald sighed.

     The homing beacon was so far away, so faint. It was also emitting an erratic pulse, quiet and full of static. Magdalene had been badly damaged in her landing, apparently.

     “Maggie’s on the other side of the planet. We’ll have to find a way to get to her, and quickly. She’s fading fast.”

     He watched hope drop from the faces of his troops.

     “We have to get off this rock before it’s too late.”

     the black: a heap of shattered images

     RUSE INITIATED. THE PREY IS ANTICIPATED.

     a smile from a mouth without substance

    
THE ANNOYANCE WILL BE DESTROYED
.

     THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.

    
THE JUDAS ENSUE((?))

     THEY FALL TO THEIR END. THEY FALL TO THE BLACK.

     pleasure. hope of pain

    
HARVEST WILL FOLLOW RUSE. UPLOAD WILL ENHANCE THE PATTERN.

     SOON THE PATTERN WILL BE COMPLETE. THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED.

    
COMPLETION IS THE PURPOSE.

     the black closes.

     Harkness. 3:30 A.M.

     The dance was winding down. Billy Joe and the Lone Stars were packing up, and the only music left was being piped from an ancient Wurlitzer jukebox: country and western. A few couples still slow-danced out on the floor to a decrepit Kenny Rogers ballad.

     Ray Shore went from table to table picking up the beer bottles and emptying the ashtrays into a wastebasket, as his father and his father’s father had done before him. He hummed along to the song, as his father and his father’s father had done before him. Kenny Rogers was truly timeless.

     He heard the main door open, but he paid no attention to it. Just another couple going off to do whatever drunk couples do on Saturday nights.

     He felt a shadow fall over him.

     A large man faced him. He was very tall, dressed in a tight black material that revealed the outline of hard muscle and a black overcoat that draped to the floor.

     He had the most striking gray eyes Ray had ever seen.

     Ray’s heart thudded in his throat as he stared into those eyes.

     “Help you, mister?”

     The couples on the dance floor had taken notice of the man in black. Their movements faltered, stopped. Kenny Rogers persisted on the jukebox, but no one was listening anymore.

     The man spoke. “I need directions to the nearest…” He considered. “Airport.”

     Ray let a smile play across his face. “You joking, mister?”

     The man looked at him silently.

     The main door opened again. Two more men came in, dressed in the same black uniform as the first. One was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, about the age of Ray’s son, who would someday take over the bar. The other was middle-aged, bald, scarred. There was an odd tattoo on his left temple. It looked to Ray like the marking on the bottom of cereal boxes. A bar code.

     They all had the same eyes.

     Ray swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Depends where you want to get to. The Hancock Civic Airstrip is closest, but it only runs local flights. There’s the Marquette Airport, and the Sawyer Air Force Base—”

     “Air Force Base?” The middle-aged man’s eyes flickered.

     “Yeah, but it’s closed to us civvies, especially since the wars and all. Mostly they use it to fly in supplies for the Containment Line. Some people say they have B-4s stored there... Say, are you guys Feds? I mean, all dressed up like secret undercover agents and stuff...”

     The man in black grinned. “Hardly.”

     Ray felt terror grip him. “You’re Styx, aren’t you?”

     Confusion. “What?”

     “You guys are some of those Styxies who escaped, right? Mister, I promise I won’t tell no one about this. You’re secret’s safe with me.”

     “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

     One of the men in the doorway tapped his wrist.

     The man in black looked Ray in the eyes. “You’re going to take us to this air force base. Sawyer.”

     “Now listen, I—“

     “Bring him.”

     The two younger strangers grappled with Ray and led him out the door, to the disbelief of the frozen people on the dance floor.

     Vessels screaming through the fabric of time.

     ((okay, listen up. first and second assault groups continue on alpha-direct trajectory. we were alerted to an enemy on purpose transit. this might be it. we didn’t know that they were this far back, and we have no idea how much energy they’ve collected at alpha. we don’t know how much of the pattern they’ve recovered already. if they’ve started to synthesize the upload generators, we have to move fast… we’ll engage the enemy in transit and then investigate the alpha point to see how far they’ve gotten. second assault group star one comes with me. maggie is out there somewhere, and she’s been hurt badly. we’re going to pick her up.))

     ((no time for questions. I’ll see you at the point.))

     Simon opened a singularity and began the search for Magdalene’s beacon, transmitting weakly through the fluid fabric of the past.

     The vessels split into two groups and faded into the night.

     Magdalene:

    
A RUSE; A TRAP. THE JUDAS FALL TO THEIR END.