[0610 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[BATEMANS BAY, NEW BZADIA]
“Tsar? Tsar!” Barnard was the first to The Tsar’s side.
Monster pushed her out of the way, pulling at The Tsar’s armour to examine the wound. He removed The Tsar’s helmet and checked his neck. The others gathered around. The Tsar seemed to be unconscious and that surely was not a good sign.
“Status?” Price asked, dropping to a knee beside him. He’ll be okay, Price thought. He had to be okay. It was her decision to cross the bridge. It was her decision to camo down. The Tsar had to be okay, or it would be her decisions that cost him his life.
“Not so good,” Monster said. “Unlucky. Armour is soft at neck. Needle got through. Now stuck in throat. He bleeding very badly. Maybe artery.”
He pulled a mediscope from his belt pack and began to scan The Tsar’s neck.
“What can I do?” Barnard asked. “What can I do?”
“Will ask if need,” Monster said.
“Give him room to work,” Price said and Barnard reluctantly eased backwards.
Barnard’s face was a mask of horror and desperation and, seeing that intense emotion, Price realised what she had missed. The constant bickering between The Tsar and Barnard was a disguise, a facade that hid a deep caring for each other. Why hadn’t she seen that before? How would she feel if it was Monster who lay there bleeding? That didn’t bear thinking about. They both knew that their relationship could be ended in an instant, by a bullet or a bomb. But knowing that wouldn’t make it any easier when that time came.
Price straightened, moving to Barnard as Monster attended to The Tsar.
“Are you okay, Retha?” she asked.
“Of course I’m okay,” Barnard said, too loudly, too quickly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? It’s The Tsar who’s not okay. Worry about him, not me.”
“I am,” Price said, putting a hand on her arm.
Barnard snatched her arm away.
Is she blaming me for what happened?
“We need to get out of here,” Wall said. “The Pukes just lost a rotorbot. They’re already on their way.”
“Are you suggesting that we just leave The Tsar to die?” Barnard snapped.
“We’ll all die if they get here and we’re still here,” Brogan said.
“Barnard, what are we facing?” Price asked.
She already had a pretty good idea, but wanted Barnard to focus on something other than The Tsar.
Barnard stared at her for a moment, then took a deep breath.
“There’s a ready reaction force in Canberra; they’re the closest,” she said. “But they’re part of the capital’s defences. I doubt they’d send those. We’ll probably get a couple of scout ships real soon, or they may just redirect other rotorbots if they have them in the area.”
“What about regular forces?” Price asked.
“They’ll send teams from Melbourne, or Sydney, or maybe both,” Barnard said. “That’ll take them a little longer. But Wall’s right. We have to get out of here. It’s going to be touch and go, even if we leave right now.”
“Can you move him?” Price asked.
Monster looked up and nodded. “Too dangerous to extract needle. Will tape needle in place and bandage. Can move.”
“How are you going to move him?” Barnard asked. “You can’t …”
Monster could, and did.
He reached down and hoisted The Tsar up in a fireman’s lift.
“Jeez, Monster,” Price said. “That can’t be good for him.”
“Worse is staying here,” Monster said. He lurched into a run, doing his best to give The Tsar a steady ride.
“Okay, Angels, we are Oscar Mike,” Price said. “Move, move, move!”
Wall picked up something off the road. It had been lying under The Tsar’s body. His scope. Wall showed it to Price. The screen was cracked and dead.
“Damn,” Price said. She ran to the dead rotorbot.
“Give me a hand with this, Wall,” she said.
Wall took one side, lifting it easily. Price struggled with her end, but managed to raise it and together they eased it over the side railing. It hit the water and sank with little splash, only a stream of bubbles indicating the location. Even as it was sinking, they were running.
“Left or right, LT?” Brogan called. She was first off the bridge.
To the right a road led into a residential area. To the left was a small, overgrown park and parking lot. Behind it was an area of forest.
“Left,” Price said. “Better cover in the trees.”
“Everybody down!” Brogan yelled.
Price had heard and seen nothing, but dived into a nearby bush, wrapping her camo sheet around her. A second later, two fast movers roared overhead, low and fast.
“That’ll be just an initial recon,” she said. “As soon as they’re out of range, get moving. We have to get to that forest before the slow movers get here.”
The jets made a second sweep before disappearing off to the north in a blaze of noise and afterburners.
A narrow dirt track through the park led up a rise towards the wooded area. It was densely overgrown, and they had to push through it.
Although only minutes, it seemed like hours before they reached the comparative safety of the trees. Price found a fallen tree branch and went back to erase their tracks, scratching out boot steps and straightening stalks of grass. She caught up with the other Angels, gathered around The Tsar, who was on the ground at the base of a large tree. Its heavy branches and leafy foliage gave good cover from any overhead watchers.
Barnard held an IV bag, which was dripping clear fluid into an opening on the arm of The Tsar’s combat suit. Bzadian suits had automatic IV tubes at the elbow for exactly this kind of situation.
Monster was using the mediscope to examine The Tsar’s neck. He clearly didn’t like what he saw.
“Monster?” Price asked.
Monster shook his head. “Needle has nicked carotid artery. He lose a lot of blood. If I leave it there, he die.”
“And if you pull it out?”
“He die quicker,” Monster said. “Needle stem blood flow.”
There was a long silence as the team considered the implications of that.
“Gotta leave him,” Brogan said.
“Get puked, Brogan,” Barnard said. “You and the horse you rode in on.”
“We leave no one behind,” Price said. “Unless they’re dead. And The Tsar ain’t dead.”
“He’s going to be,” Brogan said. As Barnard clenched her fists and moved towards her, she added, “Just telling it like it is.”
Price took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, to act like a leader. Brogan was probably right, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“What to do, LT?” Monster asked.
“We must …” Price started, but trailed off. She didn’t know what to do.
“Leave him here,” Brogan said after another silence.
“No,” Barnard said.
“It’s your choice, LT,” Brogan said. “Either we carry on with our mission, and he dies, or we give up on our mission. And he still dies.”
“You’d leave him here to die?” Barnard asked.
“Here’s as good as anywhere,” Brogan said.
“A fellow Angel dying alone in a forest?” Barnard said. “You really are a cold-hearted cow.”
“He’s not conscious,” Brogan said. “He doesn’t know he’s alone.”
“We know he’s alone,” Barnard said.
“Take him with us,” Wall said. “When we get to Canberra we can leave him at a Puke hospital or something.”
“Like that wouldn’t jeopardise the mission,” Brogan said.
“It would save his life,” Barnard said.
“It makes for no matter,” Monster said. “He would no survive journey.”
Barnard stepped right in front of Brogan, eyeballing her. “We’re not leaving him,” she said.
“I know he’s your special friend,” Brogan said, with that infuriating smile, “but he’s going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Barnard’s arm drew back to strike, but Price, behind her, reflexively caught her elbow.
“Wait a sec,” Price said. “There’s nothing we can do about it. But you can?”
“Maybe.” Brogan shrugged. “Fezerker medical training is pretty intense.”
“That’s true,” Wall agreed.
“Then you do it, Wall,” Price said.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t a medic. We all had specialties.”
Attention turned back to Brogan.
“Can you help him?” Price asked.
“Maybe,” she said again. “If you trust me.”
[0630 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[GOVERNMENT BUILDING, CANBERRA, CENTRAL MEETING ROOM]
Nokz’z entered the meeting room to find it humming: delegates chatting in small groups, chefs placing platters of food on the tables.
Commandant Goezlin, the head of the secret police, the dreaded PGZ, was in a huddle with two or three others. He must have flown in from Uluru very early that morning. Or perhaps he was already in Canberra on other business. He looked up when he saw Nokz’z enter, and broke off the conversation, walking, seemingly casually, in Nokz’z direction. But nothing Goezlin did was ever casual.
“Colonel.”
“Commandant.”
“I hear you have lost a rotorbot,” Goezlin said.
Nokz’z took his glasses off and polished the lenses. How typical that Goezlin knew this before he did. He replaced his glasses and nodded. “I am waiting for details to come through as we speak.”
Someone will be severely punished for this.
“Am I correct that it was lost on the coast, east from here?” Goezlin asked. “Batemans Bay?”
Nokz’z considered that. The bay was south-east of Canberra.
“Your information sources are impressive,” he said. “I had ordered extensive patrols of that area due to the loss of the Razers earlier this morning. But a lost rotorbot could be a malfunction. We have lost them before for this reason and I am not going to jump into any rash action before I have full details.”
Goezlin shook his head. “But as you undoubtedly know, it was operating in alert mode, tracking something, before it was lost.”
Does Goezlin know everything?
“My people are on it,” Nokz’z said, trying to salvage some dignity from the situation.
“Yes they are,” Goezlin said, but the small upturning of the corners of his lips said a shame you were not. He looked around, a little distracted, Nokz’z thought, his attention taken by one of the chefs working on the tables around the room.
The chef finished what he was doing and turned, walking past them and out of the room. His eyes flicked over both Nokz’z and Goezlin as he passed. He had no reaction to Nokz’z, but when he saw Goezlin there was a slight widening of his eyes, a subtle hitch in his stride. This chef recognised Goezlin. That was unusual. Very few would know Goezlin’s face. He was a man of the shadows, a dark creature of the night. Unless of course this poor chef had once been unfortunate enough to earn Goezlin’s attention.
Goezlin turned back to Nokz’z as the chef left. “What are your plans to deal with this intrusion?”
“I am awaiting further information,” Nokz’z said. “We do not yet know if it is an intrusion, and if it is, we do not know their target.”
“I think the target is obvious,” Goezlin said.
Nokz’z waited.
“Most of our top military leaders are here, congregated in one building, in one room,” Goezlin said. “Azoh will be attending later. A small team of assassins, or saboteurs, could cause irreparable damage to our military leadership.”
Nokz’z had to fight to keep the surprise and annoyance off his face. Azoh will attend the meeting? That was almost unprecedented. But as head of Coastal Defence, his responsibilities included the defence of the capital and the government building. Why had he not been informed?
“This meeting was only called a few hours ago,” he said. “The scumbugz could not have known about it in time to send a team of assassins.”
“Unless they sent the assassins in beforehand,” Goezlin said. “Then used their new jets deliberately to provoke the meeting.”
“I will create a perimeter around the Congress,” Nokz’z said. “Nobody will get through.”
“And Batemans Bay?” Goezlin asked.
“I will saturate the area with patrol craft and rotorbots,” Nokz’z said. “If necessary, I will raze it to the ground.”
“I am glad to see that you are on top of this situation,” Goezlin said.
Damn him!
Goezlin moved off without speaking further. He left the room via the same door the chef had just taken. It seemed casual.
But nothing Goezlin did was ever casual.
Nokz’z picked up his phone. Dequorz answered immediately.
“We just lost a rotorbot?” Nokz’z asked.
“Yes, sir. I was just about to contact you,” Dequorz said.
Nokz’z avoided berating him. For now. “Notify all patrols to be on the lookout for humans in Bzadian uniforms,” he said. “This smells like Angels to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Dequorz said. “And we have more information on the base for those new human jets.”
“Yes?”
“Our recon flight to New Zealand picked up heavy activity around the main city, Auckland. Constant air patrols.”
“How close did our jets get?” Nokz’z asked.
“Not very close,” Dequorz said. “As soon as they picked up the human patrols, they headed back.”
“Good,” Nokz’z said. “We don’t want to lose any more fighters. Send an attack wing. One Dragon and five fighters for cover defence. I want that base destroyed.”
“Just the one Dragon?” Dequorz asked.
“Just one,” Nokz’z said. “Until we know exactly what we are dealing with, I don’t want to risk any more.”
The Tsar, unconscious, rode on the tray of a small garden truck. A utility vehicle built on a golf cart chassis, it was battery powered and almost silent. Wall had found it in a work shed at a motel they had passed. The batteries were long dead, but he had jury-rigged it with a number of spare coil-gun power packs.
The sun was still low, melting slowly into the darker blue of the western sky. There were no clouds. It was going to be a clear, hot day.
Wall drove. Monster rode with The Tsar, tending to his wound as best as he could. The bandages were dark red and the colour was spreading slowly in a pool around his neck. Barnard was next to him, holding the IV bag, dripping what little plasma they had into his veins.
The Tsar was a concern, but distance was a greater concern. The further away from Batemans Bay they got, the safer Price felt.
She turned and looked back at The Tsar. It was strange how such a little thing, a slender length of steel, could turn a person from a big, vivacious, fun-loving show-off into a small, grey thing. The Tsar had always been larger than life. Now he looked older, shrivelled and dull.
An overgrown but passable track through the trees led them to a long-abandoned highway. You never realised how clean highways were until you saw an abandoned one, Price thought. Street-sweepers and the tyres of thousands of cars kept them clear. But not this road. It was papered with leaves and studded with rocks. The highway would gradually sink back into the earth it was built on, a relic for some future civilisation to dig up and wonder at.
But will that civilisation be human or Bzadian?
They came to a wide open area of forest, clear-felled. A firebreak, although with years of neglect it too was well overgrown. The Bzadians wouldn’t call it neglect. They didn’t believe in cutting and slashing at the natural world around them.
After a brief discussion the Angels turned into the firebreak. The going would be slower, but they would be less likely to run into Bzadian ground patrols. Even so, they stayed as close as possible to the tree line, ready to duck back under cover at the slightest sign of trouble. Brogan’s eyes scanned the sky constantly and she often seemed to be listening to things that nobody else could hear. Her sight and hearing abilities were extraordinary, Price thought. When they bred humans in Uluru, they bred them good. Genetically enhanced in some way. Not quite super-humans, but almost.
The side track was a blemish on the otherwise unbroken wall of the forest. A dark intrusion into the trees, just wide enough for the little truck.
Price signalled to Wall who slowed to a stop. It turned out to be a dead end, but it was almost perfect for their needs. Somewhere to hide, not too close to the town. Wall eased the truck in between two trees and stopped again in a wide space, well concealed by dense overhanging foliage.
She turned and stared at Brogan, who was sitting quietly in the passenger seat. Brogan returned her stare without blinking.
“Do you really think you could do something for The Tsar?” Price said.
“It’s a possibility,” Brogan said. “But as I said, you’ll have to trust me.”
“Trust doesn’t come easy around here,” Price said. “Especially not for you.”
“It’s your call,” Brogan said.
“Monster, what do you think?” Price asked.
“Do anything will kill him,” Monster said. “We no can remove the needle without he bleed to death.”
“But do you trust Brogan?” Price asked.
Monster shrugged and did not answer.
“Barnard?” Price asked.
“You can trust her,” Barnard said.
“Give me a reason,” Price said.
“Can’t do that,” Barnard said. “It’s classified.”
“I’m not prepared to let her touch him unless I am convinced,” Price said.
“Take my word for it,” Barnard said.
“I can’t do that,” Price said. “What do you know?”
“I can’t …” Barnard wiped The Tsar’s forehead with a cool cloth. She dropped it and looked up at Price for a moment. Without warning she exploded. “Jeez, Price, is this some kind of control thing? Because this is The Tsar’s life we’re talking about!”
“Keep your voice down,” Price said, looking around at the silent forest. “This is not about you and me, it’s about The Tsar. I’m the one who has to make the decision, and I’m the one who has to live with the consequences. Don’t ask me to do that without giving me the facts.”
Barnard stared at her a moment longer then went back to wiping The Tsar’s forehead. Without looking at either Price or Brogan, she said, “Brogan gave up the other Fezerkers.”
Brogan stood silently, expressionless. Price wondered what was going on inside her head.
“Is that true?” Wall asked. There was a mixture of emotions in his voice, and Price couldn’t help but think that he was one of those Fezerkers. If he hadn’t already switched sides, he too would have been betrayed by Brogan.
“It’s what she does best, isn’t it?” Barnard said. “Betraying people. Chisnall asked for her to be on the mission but ACOG wouldn’t agree. They ended up making a deal. She gave up everyone from Uluru that she knew of, and she gave them some good leads on a lot of others, especially those who have infiltrated the military. She was the one who identified Colonel Reid.”
Price caught her breath. The court martial of Colonel Thomas Reid had been headline news for weeks. He had turned out to be the one responsible for putting a Fezerker onto Little Diomede Island, which had nearly allowed the Bzadians to catch ACOG napping in the recent ice war.
Brogan sat unmoving: unmoved, it seemed, by Barnard’s revelation. “Now you know,” she said. “I chose to be here, even though it meant betraying people that I had known since birth. People that I had sworn to protect.”
“Can’t have be too hard,” Monster said. “You having plenty practice.”
“Get over it, big fella,” Brogan said. “That’s in the past. Let it go. And learn to speak English.”
Price saw Monster’s shoulders begin to rise and she quickly held up a hand to stop him, shaking her head. It was a sign of how rattled they all were that even Monster allowed himself to react to Brogan’s needling. Monster sat back down on the tray of the truck.
“You know what I can’t stomach, Brogan?” Price said. “It’s not just that you murdered a friend of mine and nearly got us all killed. It’s not just that you betrayed someone who trusted you. What gets on my wick is when you gave us that big sob story to Chisnall about your parents dying in a shipwreck.”
“He told you about that?”
“Of course he did. Poor little orphan Brogan. But the joke is that the rest of us are orphans. All of us know what it feels like to lose the two people who love us the most. To be alone. But you … you just fed us a story. It was all a fraud. You’re a fraud, Brogan.”
“It was the cover story they gave me,” Brogan said.
“Is that supposed to make it better?” Price asked.
“I know about your mother’s boyfriend,” Brogan said.
Price, who had risen to her feet, sat back down with a thump on the seat of the truck, rocking it a little on its suspension. “That’s none of your goddamn business,” she said.
“Maybe.” Brogan shrugged. “But I know what he did to you.”
“What that got to do with anything?” Monster asked.
“Until I was five I was raised by a Bzadian couple,” Brogan said. “Closest thing I’ll ever have to a mum and dad. They treated me really well, which can’t have been easy, considering that I looked like the enemy.” She shrugged again. “It’s sad the way humans treat their young.”
“Don’t try to turn this around,” Price said.
“I’m just saying,” Brogan said. “You didn’t deserve what happened to you. What’s wrong with the human race? Bzadians don’t do that stuff.”
“Nothing’s wrong with the human race,” Barnard said. “Don’t judge an entire species by a few psychos.”
“Yeah? Then what are you doing here?” Brogan asked. “All of you. You’re child soldiers. Think about it. This ain’t some paintball game.” She nodded towards The Tsar. “Your society cares for its children by sending them out to die in some muddy ditch. Now do you want me to help him or not?”
There was silence.
Price twisted around in her seat and leaned over The Tsar, listening to his breathing, low and ragged, noting the pallid colour of his cheeks. She touched his forehead, recoiling from the clammy coldness of his skin.
Brogan had been the team’s medic long before Monster. Plus she had Fezerker training. And really what choice was there? Without her, The Tsar would die anyway.
“Do what you can,” Price said.
“You kill him if remove needle,” Monster said.
“Thanks for the advice,” Brogan said.
Monster shook his head but stretched out an arm, handing her his mediscope.
Barnard climbed down from the tray of the truck to give Brogan room, but not before brushing her lips against The Tsar’s forehead. She clearly thought nobody noticed, and when she glanced up, Price quickly looked away as if she had not seen.
Brogan climbed over and examined the injury carefully before sitting back on her haunches, pursing her lips.
“What’s your plan, Brogan?” Price asked.
“Monster’s right about the needle,” Brogan said. “It has pierced the right carotid artery. He’s leaking like a cheap umbrella, but the needle itself is partly blocking the hole. Pull it out and we turn a trickle into a flood. However …” She took a deep breath. “If we were able to cauterise the wound then we might be able to save him.”
“How to cauterise wound?” Monster asked. “To do this must remove needle. Remove needle, he die.”
“We might be able to do it with the needle,” Brogan said. “If we can heat up the needle, then withdraw it, we might be able to cauterise the flesh as we pull it out. It’ll have to be quick though.”
“Is this really possible?” Price asked.
“Possible, yes,” Brogan said. “Chances of success, slim.”
“Is it our best option?” Price asked.
“No. A hospital would be our best option, but I forgot to bring one of those,” Brogan said.
“How to heat needle?” Monster asked.
“Electrical current,” Brogan said. “One of our spare coil-gun batteries …” She broke off abruptly and looked at the sky. “Incoming, fast movers!”
“Everybody stay where you are,” Price said. “We’re well covered here.”
She strained her ears but couldn’t hear whatever it was that Brogan had heard.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “There’s–”
She broke off as the high-pitched whine of fast-moving jets came from overhead.
A few seconds later the ground and the trees around them shook from thunderous explosions to the south-east.
“They’re hitting Batemans Bay,” Barnard said.
“That’s good,” Price said. “It means they don’t know where we are.”
“They’re not just hitting it,” Wall said, as the explosions continued. “They’re annihilating it.”
“As long as they focus on the town, we’ll be okay,” Price said.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Barnard said.
She had barely finished speaking when a much closer wave of explosions rolled up through the forest.
“Everybody get down,” Price yelled. “Find what cover you can. Get The Tsar off the truck.”
Monster and Barnard lifted The Tsar and placed him on the ground next to the truck, taking advantage of what little protection it offered. Price found a depression in the ground and pressed herself into it.
More blasts. Flame and smoke rippled through the forest, closer and closer.
The ground was moving like an earthquake now, rolling shudders making it difficult to breathe. Barnard spread herself over The Tsar, protecting him from the debris that began to shower down on them. Earth, rock fragments, tree shards. The heat and pressure waves smashed through the forest, bending back tall gums and stripping them of their leaves. The little truck was shunted sideways by one blast, rolling onto its side and slamming into a tree where it wedged tight.
For a few moments the barrage seemed to stop, but it was only a respite, the eye of the storm. Through a gap in the trees, waving like reeds in the wind, Price saw the menacing, bug-like shape of a Bzadian Dragon, rocket ports alive with fire. It was a creature from hell, and it brought hell with it. In an awesome display of firepower the Dragon began to take the forest apart. Whole trees, on fire, were flying through the air.
“We gotta get out of here,” Wall shouted over the noise of the explosions. “It’s getting closer!”
“No!” Price yelled back. “Stay down. Stand up and you’ll die!”
As if to make her point, a tree trunk came crashing through the forest, smashing into the ground and rolling over and over, ending up on top of Price’s dip in the ground. A heavy branch, smoking but not burning, embedded itself in the dirt between her legs.
“Listen to your LT,” Brogan yelled. “There’ll be rotorcraft and rotorbots hovering overhead, just waiting for us to break cover. We have to ride it out.”
A tree at the edge of their clearing suffered a direct hit, about midway up. It shattered into thousands of splinters and shards, raining down all around them, clattering off their combat armour, but not penetrating.
There was screaming on the com – pain, fear, Price could not tell – and still the earth heaved and trees danced their awful dance, the fists of smoke and jagged teeth of red and yellow flames punched and chewed their way through the forest.
Price could hear more screaming, some of it hers, although it was submerged by wave after wave of crashing thunder and bone-shaking rumbles.
And then it was over.
Just as quickly as it started, it stopped. The only sounds were the diminishing whine of the jets overhead, the fading echoes of the explosions, and the intense and painful ringing in Price’s ears.
“Azoh,” Monster said.
“Is anybody hurt?” Price asked. “Is everyone okay?”
One by one the voices of her team checked in, slowly, dazed, as if stunned to find themselves still alive and uninjured.
“We need to get the heck out of here,” Wall said.
“We’re not going anywhere until Brogan operates on The Tsar,” Price said.
“I don’t know if we have time,” Brogan said. “Look.”
Price looked back to the east through the blackened, broken and upturned trees of what had been a thriving forest. The sky was glowing like a second sunrise, orange and red boiling into the sky. The world was ablaze.
“It’ll spread, and quickly,” Barnard said. “It hasn’t rained in this region since November. This place is a tinderbox.”
“Do what you need to do, Brogan,” Price said. “But do it quickly.”
[1030 HOURS LOCAL TIME]
[USS APPLE, HAURAKI GULF, AUCKLAND]
Flight Commander Molly Shaw was glad to be back in the action. The USS Apple had been sheltering in its home base at Naval Base San Diego since the sinking of the USS Galaxy and her entire strike group early in the war. Human ships were just too vulnerable to the incredible firepower of the alien warplanes.
But not any more.
Scream jets had changed all that. The nickname came from their scram-jet engines, which were faster than the ram-jets of Bzadian aircraft, much faster. Able to outrun any Bzadian missile, they were about to change the face of the war.
They had their drawbacks though. Launching them was a long complicated procedure. They had to be attached to a carrier jet, which would then take off and climb almost to the stratosphere before releasing the jet. That took time.
Landing was impossible. The scream jets could not fly slowly enough to land. Instead they ditched. They cut engines and went vertical, letting gravity suck away all their speed. When they reached the apex of the climb they began to fall, parachutes were deployed and they ditched in the ocean as close to the carrier as possible. Recovery helicopters were needed to pick them up and bring them back to the ship for redeployment.
Shaw was glad to be on the sharp end of the knife. Bringing the fight to the Bzadians with a direct attack on their soil. Showing the aliens that humans could now strike where and when they pleased. The scream jets had already had their first encounter with Bzadian jets, and it had proved decisive.
The one thing she wished they had was an AEW plane: Airborne Early Warning. All of those had been lost in the early years of the war and the priority had been on producing new warplanes, not surveillance planes. There was little point in having an AEW plane aloft, because you knew it was going to be the first plane targeted by the Bzadians.
In any case, the USS Apple had twelve fighters permanently aloft, flying in concentric circles, actively looking for any intruders. They had permanent links to radar stations all along the western coastline of New Zealand. The defensive ring of ships that surrounded the USS Apple was on high alert and would remain so.
Shaw would be happy once she was in the air and on her way to her target: Canberra, Australia. The Bzadians were about to learn a lesson they would not easily forget.
The smoke from the explosions had been orange and grey. The smoke that was starting to eddy around them now was black. Smoke from the forest, which was well ablaze.
Wall, obeying Brogan’s instructions, jury-rigged some wiring from the truck. Brogan borrowed a surgical marking pen from Monster’s medikit and, after examining the wound carefully with the scope, made a series of careful markings on the bandages and the skin of The Tsar’s neck.
She wound a tight coil of wire around the protruding end of the needle and inspected it. She connected another wire to a metal pad. She stripped off The Tsar’s armour and taped the pad to his thigh.
“What’s that for?” Price asked.
“Grounding pad,” Brogan said, but didn’t explain further. Price didn’t like what she saw. The bandages were bloody.
Brogan stopped moving, listening. “Everybody freeze!”
Price heard it almost immediately. The quiet whop-whop-whop of small rotorblades. It faded in and out, just at the limit of her hearing. Rotorbots were quiet, so it was somewhere close by. Having uncapped hell, the Bzadians were coming back to survey the results of their work.
A gust of air from the east brought a plume of dense smoke, and with it a fist of hot air. Branches trembled. Leaves shook. Smoke eddied around them, filtering through the trees, shimmering in pencil thin rays of sunlight.
“We gotta get out of here,” Wall said. “Or we’re going to be crispy fried critters.”
“Not while that rotorbot is sniffing around us,” Price said.
“Not until Tsar is fixed,” Monster said.
The sound of rotorblades grew louder. It was much closer now. Price rested a hand on her sidearm as she thought through her options. There were none. They couldn’t risk the operation while the rotorbot was there, but it was clear that the fire was spreading and heading in their direction.
It was a race against time, and any way she thought it through, it was a race they would lose.
If the rotorbot found them, it was all over anyway; they wouldn’t be so lucky twice. Lucky. Price smiled bitterly to herself as she watched The Tsar’s chest fluttering in light, shallow breaths.
The rotorbot moved past them, a flickering shadow in the thickening smoke through the trees. An insect with a deadly sting in its tail. It must have been barely a few metres away and Price was very aware that any second it could decide to turn in their direction. They waited. Gradually, the sound receded.
But as it did, the smoke intensified. Any thicker and Brogan wouldn’t be able to see enough to operate.
“Do it,” Price whispered. “Forget the rotorbot. Do it now, as quietly as you can.”
Brogan nodded. “Connect the battery when I say,” she said. Then, after a longer examination of the needle, she said, “Okay, now.”
The coil of wire began to glow red. Price could not tear her eyes off it. Brogan also watched it intently, only looking away after the needle had reached a dull orange glow, warming to red. Then she turned to the mediscope, completely focused on the small screen as she clamped the end of the needle with a utility tool.
The flesh of The Tsar’s neck began to smoke and there came the terrible smell of burning flesh.
“Okay, shut it off,” Brogan said, and Wall disconnected the battery.
Slowly, gently, Brogan eased the needle out of The Tsar’s neck, watching every millimetre minutely on the mediscope. At one point she pressed the needle back into his neck before withdrawing it again.
When the needle was fully out, she dropped it onto the ground as if it was a foul, evil thing.
There was silence.
“Well?” Price asked.
“I think I got it,” Brogan said. She examined the wound, then applied some antiseptic cream and started to bandage The Tsar’s neck.
“How will we know?” Barnard asked. The intellectual ice queen of the team was pale and seemed shaken.
“If he lives,” Brogan said. “Then we’ll know. Get some plasma into him.”
“Last bag,” Monster said, opening his medikit.
Price checked the time.
They were well behind schedule.