“Just seeing it again makes me angry,” Jack said, breaking the long silence in the cockpit.
It wasn’t the first time he had piloted a small craft toward the Centauri homeworld of Abeona, and as the brilliant blue-green globe swelled to fill the view ahead, he tried to see the beauty of this Second Earth. Yet this globe had been the backdrop to too many terrors, too many nightmares.
Beside him, Katja turned in her spacesuit to give him an appraising look.
“Good to hear,” she said. “I was half expecting you to start gushing about how beautiful everything is.”
“When do I gush?”
“Pretty much whenever you like something.”
“Yeah, well… fuck you.”
Her laughter filled the tiny space.
“Stay angry, Jack. That’s what’s going to get us through this mission.” She gestured forward at the approaching planet. “It is beautiful, and the society we’re infiltrating has a lot of appeal. We’re going to blend in, going to act like they do. If we’re not careful, though, we’ll start to sympathize with them. That cannot happen. We’re on a mission for Terra, and Centauria is the enemy. Staying angry is the best way to keep it straight in your head.”
He nodded. Katja knew him better than most.
“I promise not to meet any nice Centauri girls.”
“Don’t joke—it happens.”
“With you at my side, Katja, I doubt any woman would even risk looking at me.”
“You’d be surprised how sweet I can be,” she said, blinking her big browns.
“You’re right,” he said. “It would be a surprise.”
Turning his attention back to his flight controls, he listened to the chatter of Abeona Traffic Control as they diligently tracked and identified vessels near the planet. He was trying his very best to stay beneath their notice. The insertion craft he flew was designed to evade sensors, but he’d long ago learned the folly of underestimating Centauri technology. As they entered the crowded lanes he watched the movements of other ships and kept beyond visual range, moving into a high polar orbit that pointed him away from the main starports.
“Any warships?” he asked.
“Three,” Katja responded, highlighting them on their shared display. “Looks like two Space Guard cutters and a Navy frigate.”
“The cutters are probably diligent, but I doubt the frigate is paying attention. This is a relaxation mission for them, away from the front.”
“Yeah, they’re perched in geosynchronous over Firsthome. The cutters are maneuvering, and I’d bet they’re coordinating their coverage.”
Jack watched the symbols in the display for a moment, reassuring himself that their vectors were heading away from him. Returning his attention to the visual, he surveyed the brilliant white expanse at the top of Abeona’s visible disk. Traffic over the northern ice cap was practically nonexistent, and he kept the craft pointed at the waypoint one thousand kilometers above the pole. As the planet loomed larger, filling his entire view, he watched as the greens and blues of the temperate zone gave way to the browns and, finally, white of the arctic. Only a single unmanned satellite kept pace with him as he continued north, but it drifted up and ahead as Jack bled off velocity and continued to slowly drop toward the planet. He was closing the entry point.
“Ready for insertion?” he asked.
“Ready.”
He closed his faceplate and did one final check of the surrounding area. There were no craft within a thousand kilometers, and no ground-based sensors nearby. Entering atmosphere was hard to do without anyone noticing, but the odds today were in his favor.
Spinning the craft to point its main engines into his direction of flight, he opened the throttle. The acceleration pushed his seat against him and his vector began to drop toward the surface. Abeona’s gravity was strong enough to take effect immediately, pulling the craft inward as it bled off speed. For several minutes there was no apparent change in the cockpit—the view of orbital space remained full of the distant blinking lights of spacecraft, and the pressure against his back stayed constant.
Then he felt the first buffet of atmosphere. He couldn’t count how many times he’d flown atmo insertion, and he knew what to expect. His hands tightened on the controls, the craft started to vibrate, but he kept his eyes on his instruments as both speed and altitude switched to planetary reference, and steadily dropped.
The vibration grew to a constant shudder. In his peripheral he saw Katja grip her armrests, and the first hints of super-heated air flashed into view. Not good—few things telegraphed the presence of a descending spaceship more clearly than a meteor trail of burning air. He throttled up, taking the strain of deceleration on the engines and away from the surrounding air. To an observer on the surface his thrust would be as bright as a new star by now, but only if that observer was in exactly the right place. With millions of square kilometers of ice below, that was unlikely.
All part of the plan, he reminded himself.
It took nearly ten minutes, but the craft finally dropped to hypersonic speed and flight-capable altitude. One final thrust flipped the craft around, pointing its nose in his direction of travel. He extended the craft’s wings and switched from thrusters to flight surfaces. His control stick fought for a moment, then settled into atmo flight. All around, the white expanse of the Abeonan arctic spread away beneath them.
“Not bad, Jack,” Katja breathed. “First atmo entry ever where I didn’t want to hurl.”
“Thanks,” he replied, feeling a smile tug at his lips. A compliment from Katja Emmes was a rare treat, and he swallowed any wry comment which might spoil the moment.
“I’ve input the RV point, and I’m starting my initial security scan,” she said, all business again. A new symbol appeared on the display—the rendezvous point where he was to land the craft and take possession of their ground transport—and he adjusted course. They were still high in atmo for a flier, but here in the quiet skies of the far north there were few dedicated air lanes, and even fewer people likely to complain if he disregarded the recommended routes. Starting a long, leisurely descent he kept watch for other craft while Katja hunted for any threatening emissions or signals.
All was quiet as they sped southward, high over a continent-spanning mountain range and into the temperate zone. Civilian chatter increased in frequency as they entered more populated areas, but no one interrogated them, and there was nothing from the planet to suggest any sense of urgency. It was almost as if the war hadn’t touched this place, Jack thought, and the business of regular life just carried on.
The RV point was to the north of the major city of Starfall, nestled among a range of low hills near a lake hidden deep in the dense forest. Jack slowed to his minimum flying speed and did a slow circle of the lake. On one shore the trees fell away to reveal a beach and grassy meadow. That was the landing zone.
“Looks clear,” he said.
“I concur,” Katja replied, eyes on her console.
“I’m bringing us in.”
The winds were light and they dropped nearly to tree-top height as he engaged his thrusters and slowed to a hover over the beach. Ripples spread out across the water, and then he felt the thump of touchdown. The craft’s weight settled on the landing gear, but he kept his hands on the controls. He watched the visible shore for any signs of movement.
“We’re clear,” Katja said.
Jack killed the engines and began his shut-down procedure. The rumble of the craft faded into a close silence broken only by the taps of his fingers on the controls, and Katja unbuckling from her seat. She closed her eyes—he could sense her presence in the Cloud as she did another scan of the area—and then started pulling off her spacesuit. Jack followed and within a minute they were both clad in the latest in casual hiking fashion.
Katja lifted an assault rifle to her eyeline and gestured for Jack to open the door. He did so with one hand, the other gripping the pistol he’d stuffed into his pocket. As the door slid open a gust of cool, moist air rushed over him—his first Centauri breath. It was clean, almost sweet, and he paused to savor another before stepping down to the flattened grass.
<Our equipment bears two-four-zero,> Katja said. <Just inside the treeline.>
Jack glanced at his watch to get his bearing, then walked out across the soft ground toward the edge of the forest. He kept his movements casual—he was completely out in the open and crouching or skulking would only make him look suspicious—but his senses reached out on all wavelengths. With a pilot’s eyes he scanned the trees and the flat surface of the lake, seeing nothing unusual.
At the edge of the forest there was a pair of vehicles tucked into what might be an old campsite. One of the vehicles was a civilian hovercar, thoroughly nondescript in color and design, but the other was more interesting. It looked like a flatbed transport truck, but with no cab for a driver, and its construction was robust, even military-hardened. He sent the visual feed back to Katja.
<Both vehicles look secure,> he said, <but I don’t see how we’ll operate the truck.>
<Look inside the car,> Katja replied. <I’m coming over.>
Jack peered through the windows of the car and, sure enough, saw an obvious control unit sitting on the floor of the back seat. The door was unlocked and he pulled the control unit out. Katja jogged up, rifle cradled in her arms. She surveyed the scene without comment.
Examining the control unit, he skipped past the manual instruments and linked directly to its electronic brain. Within moments he’d mapped out the capabilities of the truck and was impressed.
“It’s designed to stay underwater for months,” he said, “and it’s strong enough to carry a Hawk.”
“So, strong enough for our craft?” Katja asked impatiently.
“Easily.” He climbed up onto the flatbed and offered a hand to her. She ignored the gesture and scrambled up to stand next to him. Activating the truck, he smiled as it lifted slowly off the ground. Branches snapped and flicked past him as he drove it clear of the treeline and crossed the stretch of meadow to the beach. Together he and Katja grabbed their gear out of the craft, and while she carried the packs back to the civilian vehicle, Jack played around with the truck’s anti-gravity controls.
It was impressive that a vehicle this small could manipulate gravity enough to lift his spacecraft, let alone smoothly guide the awkward load onto the flatbed. Magnetic locks secured the two vehicles together and then Jack—with a final check that the spacecraft was fully sealed—drove the load slowly down the beach and into the water. It was a smooth slope, but steep enough that the truck disappeared underwater within moments, and the craft slipped beneath the surface shortly thereafter.
He kept the truck moving to make certain several meters of murky water covered the craft, then lowered it to the sandy lakebed and locked it into place. Then he jogged back to the car. Katja had loaded the backpacks and hidden her rifle, and was sitting in the driver’s seat.
No, he realized as he climbed in beside her, she was in the passenger seat. Centauris drove on the opposite side of the road from Terrans, and their cars were designed in reverse. He looked around curiously at the controls. They were different from standard Terran cars, but not so much that he couldn’t figure it out.
“Having troubles, there, Mr. Pilot?”
He gave her a withering glance.
“There’s a steering wheel, a pair of foot throttles, and an on-off switch. I’m pretty sure I can make it work, but you’re in charge of the stereo.” He tapped the power button and the car blossomed to life. Glowing readouts gave him his status and Katja quickly brought up the navigation screen between them. A route traced out over the map and then zoomed in to give him directions.
“You might just have the car drive us,” she offered.
“No way,” he responded. “I want to get a feel for this little roadster.”
“Suit yourself.” She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. A new surge of Cloud presence dismissed any notion that she was settling in for a nap.
Jack gripped the wheel and nudged the car forward, maneuvering slowly through the tiny clearing and picking up the trail through the trees. It was strange to have the majority of his vehicle on his left, but he hooked himself into the car’s proximity sensors and quickly got a feel for how much space he really had around him. By the time the forest trail spilled out onto a wide, cropped-grass road, Jack was driving the car like it was an old friend.
Following the navigation system was easy and Jack watched the remote forest landscape gradually give way to farms, and then to small settlements. Centauri policy had always been to spread out the human population as much as possible over its worlds, limiting the ecological impact on any given area. With transport as quick and efficient as it was, there was no reason to cluster large populations together. Thus he noticed a significant increase in car traffic even before they approached the Starfall city limits.
Starfall was one of only three major centers on the entire planet, its population holding at just below one million. It had been the site of humanity’s second permanent base here, its role as landing zone and administrative center forcing a certain number of colonists to remain nearby even as arriving settlers were quickly scattered across the northern hemisphere.
Like any human settlement it eventually achieved a cultural and economic critical mass that made it politically impossible to maintain normal population restrictions. Even so, it was impressive how well the city blended into nature as the grassy road led into its heart. The main route dropped below ground into a sprawling series of tunnels that served as transportation arteries. The hard stone excavated to make these tunnels had in turn been used to build an entire generation of buildings on the surface. Following the nav system through the tunnels toward their destination, he felt a twinge of disappointment that he was missing the beautiful, historic city above.
When they finally re-emerged, his impression was that it must be nearing sunset, but the orange tint to the light was normal for Centauri A, hanging high in the sky. Cars and buses moved smoothly along the treelined boulevards and Jack merged with the flow. Spying a driveway between a cluster of low-rise apartment buildings, he turned and slipped into the residential zone.
Pedestrians moved with purpose on broad raised walkways, and the car slowed to a crawl, switching to automatic control. The buildings next to the wide street were low, none of them more than four stories high, though much taller ones rose further back. Their narrow, elegant lines and distance from the street did little to threaten the airiness of the entire locality. It was a stark contrast to the crowded cities of Earth.
“Did we get set up in an expensive neighborhood?” he asked.
“No, we’re actually in one of the lower-income areas.”
“Wow.” He looked around again at the bright, clean buildings, the bustling sidewalks and the grassy street. Growing up working class in Terra, he would never have dreamed of living in a place like this.
The car parked itself in an underground lot. Jack and Katja retrieved their backpacks, as well as the long “fishing rod case” which carried the heavy weaponry. They ascended via an elevator to the apartment that had been arranged for them. Their ID chips released the door locks, and within minutes of arrival they were setting down their bags and exploring their new home.
The front entrance had a small closet on the right before spilling into the main living room. A breakfast bar formed the border with the kitchen. One door led to a bedroom just off the front entrance, and another door led to a bedroom next to the kitchen. The view through the main window was of the pleasant street below.
Katja sent Jack the instructions she had received from the Terran assets who had arranged everything for them. He was now John Edwards, a v-ware specialist who worked for various large companies on short-term contracts. She was Kristin Magnussen, an independent tour guide for a company that specialized in “extreme” vacations.
Glancing into the nearest bedroom, away from the kitchen, Katja said, “I’ll take this one,” and she tossed her backpack through the door. Jack obligingly carried his pack over to the far bedroom and set it down by the door. He wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“We’re going to have to do some shopping.”
“You can take care of that,” she said, sitting down on the couch. “Centauri intelligence has images of my face, so it’s best if I stay out of public places. I’ll plan to stay in here unless we’re doing an op.”
“Okay.”
Jack was happy to get out and explore the neighborhood. His mission was to infiltrate Centauri security systems and provide cover for Katja as she conducted her operations. The better he understood how Centauri society worked and thought, the easier his job would be. Plus, he thought as he looked out the window at the green, spacious road and walkways below, there were worse places to be.