We landed and a dozen marines rushed out to circle the ship. They were wearing their full kit, with hoods down, reactors on their back and beam projectors held across their chests. I swiveled the camera and began to frown.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sandra. “Why is everyone running around like that? Don’t they know us?”
“Something has them worked up, that’s for sure.”
I knew I should go out there and talk to them, but I hesitated. I licked my lips, and felt Sandra staring at me.
“Something is horribly wrong,” she said. “It’s time-dilation, isn’t it?”
“Nah,” I said. “It looks like our time. The beam turrets have just been built. The camp looks the same as the day I left.”
“Don’t go out there, Kyle. Something’s wrong, don’t you sense it? Let’s just fly up and away, gently.”
I looked at her. “Why?”
“This might not even be our world. What if we came back to the right time, but not quite the right place?”
I blinked. That was a new and frightening idea. “A parallel universe? I don’t buy that.”
“What else would make them act so differently if we’ve only been gone ten days?”
“Maybe it’s been a year. Maybe there has been a coup of some kind, and I’m not as welcome as I once was.”
“Two more reasons to back off. If we don’t make any surprising moves maybe they won’t fire on us.”
I nodded. “Socorro, follow Sandra’s orders if I’m out of contact.”
“Sandra is command personnel?”
“Yes.”
I kissed her. I had to pry her fingers away from my neck, then I went outside.
The men were indeed nervous. When the hatch melted open and I stepped out, they didn’t point their projectors at me, but I felt them twitch as if they wanted to. I stepped up to the duty Sergeant. I thought I knew him.
“Santos?” I asked.
Santos opened his mouth, closed it again, then opened it again. He heaved a huge sigh. “Yes, sir. Good to see you, sir.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve got orders to escort you to the command center, sir. On the double.”
I looked around at them, they looked serious—and nervous. I nodded.
Mentally, I contacted the Socorro. The ship still sat grounded behind me. Her bulk blocked out the sky. Socorro, seal all entrances.
Acknowledged.
I’d figured it out. I was pretty sure this was a coup of some kind. Crow or one of the other officers had made a move and grabbed power. I thought about trying to dodge back aboard my ship, but I didn’t figure I’d make it past a dozen armed men. The best move was to bluff it through, as I’d done with the Macros.
I turned and walked toward the command center. The men followed me. Sergeant Santos hurried to keep up.
“Uh, sir?” he said in a hushed voice.
“What is it, Sergeant?”
“Do you know what the hell is going on?”
I gave him a half-smile. “I was about to ask you the same question. Don’t worry Sergeant, just back me up and I’ll straighten it all out.”
The man looked relieved. I felt relief myself. Maybe I could turn this firing squad into an honor guard. Whoever had organized this coup didn’t have full control yet if these men didn’t know what was up. If they hadn’t decided whose side they were on—well, I’d make sure they were on my side.
“Give me your sidearm, will you, Sergeant?” I asked.
“Uh, of course, sir,” he said, handing it over.
I walked up to the command center. We’d long ago fixed the window the Alamo had broken by plucking out the irritating General Sokolov. I threw open the door, ushered Santos and two of his nearest men into the building, then slammed the door behind us. It shook the glass in the window.
There was Crow, standing over the big, pool table-sized planning computer. I walked up to him. I was big on the direct approach.
Crow turned and saw me, and his brows knit into a fierce frown of determination. His lips curled back into a snarl. I nodded to him. If that’s how this was going to go down, I was ready. He stepped up to me and reached out his big arms, teeth bared.
“What the hell did you do up there, Kyle?” he asked.
Both of us registered surprise. I’d been expecting something along the lines of, You’re finished here, Riggs.
Crow’s surprise was of an entirely different nature. He looked down and found a pistol probing his belly.
“What the hell is this? Put that away, man. We have an emergency,” Crow said. He batted away the pistol, and I let him. He pointed toward the big computer table. I followed his finger warily. I was confused.
“They came down three days ago. At first, they were just wandering around, scanning everything I suspect. We tried to talk to them, but they mostly ignored us. Then the Chinese made a bad move.”
“The Chinese?” I asked.
I looked at the computer table. It glowed with a sweeping map of Eastern Asia. It was dotted with icons representing bases, population concentrations and military units.
“What the hell is going on, Jack?” I asked. “Pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s the Macros, Kyle. They came back and the Chinese shot some missiles at them from their silos in Tibet—the ones around Delingha. Apparently, they had some new ground-to-space weaponry they wanted to try out. Now, the Macros are bombing them. They are killing millions.”
-32-
I almost puked. The guilt welled up in me, the horror of knowing I’d screwed up monumentally—even if unintentionally. As I raced back to my ship I wondered if drivers felt this way when they plowed into a group of school kids in a crosswalk.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. The Macros had followed me back through the ring. They’d wanted to come scout our system, even as we’d done to theirs. It was a response that was almost human, and I was sure that I’d awakened that response. What was the old adage about letting sleeping dogs lie?
They’d followed me back through, decided to check out their new ally Earth, and things had gone badly. The Chinese had made the next mistake—I couldn’t shoulder all the blame for that one. They’d panicked. They’d seen four Macros cruising over their nation in orbit, and had taken a poke at them.
Obviously, they’d developed new weapons. Of course they had. Every nation on Earth with half a military was madly developing space-warfare capabilities. They didn’t have fusion technology or nanites, but they had old-fashioned electronic computers, ballistic know-how and nuclear warheads. They’d become paranoid when the Macros came into orbit over them, not wanting to become the next South American wasteland. They’d fired—and to their credit, they had managed to take out one of the four Macro ships.
But at tremendous cost. The three remaining Macro ships now sat over their patch of land and had by all reports unloaded nearly a hundred nuclear strikes. They had not targeted population centers, but had wreaked their cold revenge solely upon military installations. Still, it was China. There were people everywhere, and fallout traveled. The casualties were already in the millions and millions more would die in the weeks ahead due to radiation and general chaos. Those predictions only held if the bombardment stopped now, however.
I raced into the ship in a nanite-charged blur of motion. Sandra followed me and climbed into her seat, strapping in. I ordered Socorro to lift off before either one of us had finished fooling with our buckles.