“Quarantined? For what?”
“It’s—” How could he say this? Mirabeau was one of the previous Commandant’s friends, and definitely not in the know, but he was someone whose rank and title would carry weight with any provincial county hospital. “It’s something the ground forces have tried to keep quiet, General. Highly classified, moderately contagious, caused mental degeneration.”
“Ah. I see. Well, I’ll contact them.”
“Tell them the military will send a secure transport and to keep the patients isolated and sedated.”
“Right.”
That took care of one potential problem. But—what had actually happened? What if the cattle had been a planned roadblock, so that someone could take them? But how? His skullphone pinged again.
“Commandant, I have a result on that satellite analysis you asked for. Do you want to come down or do you want a summary?”
“Summary first.”
“Yes, sir. Seventeen vehicles were held up by approximately sixty cattle owned by Rock House Cattle Company. Someone came along last night, cut the fence, stole some stock that were in a pen waiting for a vet check before going to auction, and the other cattle in that field got out onto the road. The local emergency response service was there, along with ranch workers, but it took at least forty minutes to clear the cattle and get traffic moving again. All the vehicles were known to the emergency response team… a school bus transporting half-day students, ten private vehicles headed one way or the other, owned by residents in the area, a van owned by a large-animal veterinarian, a horse transport from Highfields Stud, a freight delivery truck—known in the area, comes that way daily—a furniture truck from Weekes City with an order of a living room suite and two beds, with mattresses, for a farmhouse recently purchased by a retired banker and his wife. Then a milk truck picking up milk from the three dairy farms. The only one not known to locals was a green truck with a yellow logo, that’s your target truck, right?”
Kvannis didn’t answer that. “Any ambulances?”
“No, sir. No one was injured; the first drivers saw the cattle in the road in time to stop. But the target truck—its driver passed out drunk—it had to be towed off after the traffic cleared. Informant says to Fordham, to the impound lot, because the driver was undoubtedly going to jail. He’d yelled at the crew, demanding to be let through first, and then later he was drinking something and then he passed out.”
That was definitely suspicious. Drugged? But how, and by whom?
“Find out what vehicles were ahead and behind ours in line, and get back to me.”
“Oh, I know what was behind. That was the regular freight delivery truck.”
“Which line?”
“Stevens-Vatta, out of Stevensville, south of here. They’ve been around for decades. Paint their trucks yellow and red, not blue and red, even after they merged with Vatta years ago.”
“I see,” Kvannis said. He had no doubt in his mind that that truck and its crew had done it, whatever “it” proved to be. Worst case, scooped up all five of them—the ranking NCOs. He looked up their names, called up their records, thinking dark thoughts about Vatta as he did. Damn the woman. The Rector, the former admiral, the CEO—one of them, or more likely all three together. And was that where the first missing prisoners had shown up? He’d suspected it, but he’d had no evidence. If so, they had eight… eight witnesses, homegrown believable witnesses. And where were those witnesses now? First, though, he’d see that no more were taken; he had his next in command notify the other transports. He personally notified his most senior associates, those in the ruling council, advising them of the developing problem, and told them not to contact him.
Sergeant Major Morrison raged inside. What they had done to her people, what she had not been able to do when she first saw them, and what was still happening to the rest of them. Safe in Vatta’s regularly scheduled cargo plane—she hoped—the five were now recording what they knew of their imprisonment. The first three, who’d given their information before, were asleep now. Morrison had not imagined, before she saw them first in the so-called rehabilitation center, that Slotter Key’s military could so mistreat its own people. But they had, and that meant that someone in the command chain had planned it, authorized it, carried out those orders.
She trusted General Molosay and his aide and Major Hong. She wished she knew if Colonel Nedari was safe. He felt solid to her, but what about his senior? She was sure of Master Sergeant “Rusty” Rustowsky, her neighbor. He had been her choice to escort the second group of rescued prisoners to Port Major and waited now in the Weekes City warehouse. She hoped to be back in time to meet the third group herself, but that depended on flight times.
“Sergeant Major, would you come to the flight deck please?”
Morrison went forward, nodding to those who looked up at her. She opened the unlocked door. “Yes?”
“We’ve overheard a communication that’s a bit troubling.” The pilot’s voice sounded tense. “Says it’s Slotter Key AirDefense, with orders for something called Baker Flight. Change of orders, intercept a civilian aircraft and force a landing at a particular military airfield. Would you be able to tell if it’s real or some idiot kids playing a game with drones?”
“Maybe.”
“I recorded it—here’s the playback.” He handed her a tab, and she put it in her earbud’s player.
The voice sounded adult, male, and professional. Not like a kid at all. She suspected the pilot had come to the same conclusion. “It’s real, and isn’t that this aircraft’s registration number?”
“Yes. I thought it was real, too. You have any advice?”
“We don’t want to land on any military airfield,” Morrison said. She didn’t know how much the pilot knew about their mission. “I’d better contact my command chain. Do you know how far away that Baker Flight is?”
“No—Tomas, do you have anything on radar yet?”
“No, not—wait. That might be… yeah. Four of ’em.”
Morrison was already calling the Rector’s office. Jumping the command chain was bad, but so was their situation altogether.
“Yes, Sergeant Major?”
“We’re in the air; we’ve intercepted a signal in the clear from someone to some AirDefense interceptors to come and force us to land on a military airfield—I don’t yet know where.”
“Don’t do that,” the Rector said. “Could you tell where they were coming from?”
“Ulan, there they are!” The copilot was pointing. Faster than Morrison expected the interceptors came at them, and the cockpit communications panel came on, the speaker blaring.
“Vatta Transport Flight 57E, begin descent to three thousand meters and follow all further verbal orders. You will land at Molwarp Military Airfield following directives of Molwarp Air Traffic Control.”
The interceptors roared past on either side, aircraft Morrison had seen, but never this close.
Vatta’s pilot pulled his mike up and flicked it on. “Who the snarkling hell are you to give me orders? This is a regularly scheduled cargo flight, on time and on course. You flyboys get your zippy little toys out of my airspace! You’re breaking the aviation laws.”
“You will land—”
“No, I will not land anywhere but at my filed destination, Port Major—what d’you think you’re doing? You must be drunk out of your mind, like that twit who tried something with our flight four years ago. Who’s your commanding officer? You’re going to get a burn that’ll have you standing up for days—”
“This is Baker Flight, AirDefense, from Molwarp Air Base, on orders from Major General Iskin Kvannis, Combined Military Command, Slotter Key Military Headquarters. You are ordered to descend to six thousand meters and change course to follow our lead aircraft immediately. Our orders allow firing on your aircraft if you do not comply.”