“As you were. Lieutenant, is that supposed to be a captain’s chair?”
He grinned. “Sir, the Worlders like to sit on heaped-up cushions. I don’t.”
“Understandable.” Jason realized that he had no idea how the Worlders lived at Monterey Base; he’d never been in any of their quarters. Did Jane sit on cushions instead of chairs, eating or studying English at a low table? “Where is Major Farouk?”
Martin said, “We dragged him to bed, sir.”
“Good. Lieutenant, can you fly the ship at this altitude to HQ at Fort Hood?”
“At a lower height, yes. I need to navigate visually, unless I can home in on a long-range signal.”
“No signal, not until we get there. Take the ship down to above a hundred thousand feet.”
“Altitude is difficult to calculate, sir—I don’t understand their measurements.”
“What do you understand?”
He pointed to a small screen. “This shows symbols that seem to correspond to air temperature. The high troposphere is much colder than the stratosphere above it. Stratosphere starts at about forty thousand feet, at this latitude.”
Jason didn’t ask how he knew that; Allen possessed a curious mind interested in any branch of science with military application. It was why Jason, lacking a trained pilot, had assigned him to the Return.
“I want the ship low enough for rough visual navigation but still as high as you can—high enough to avoid attack by F-35s.”
His eyes widened. “Yes, sir. I can try.”
“What is the fuel situation?”
“I haven’t been able to determine that, and neither had Captain Carter or Major Farouk. Our best guess was that it’s some kind of cold fusion, at least during conventional flying. When it jumps… well, anybody’s guess. Branch thought maybe it utilized dark energy or dark matter.”
That was also what Farouk had speculated. Not useful. “When we arrive above HQ, initiate contact.”
“Yes, sir. But we don’t need to be right above them. There’s a range—you’ll remember that the Return contacted Monterey Base from space without knowing exactly where it was.”
Jason did remember—it was one of the few pieces of luck he’d had. What if the Return had instead made contact with New America? It could have happened that way. He said, “Proceed, Lieutenant. Martin, has HQ restored visual communication?”
“No, sir.” And then, in a sudden burst, “That should have been an easy patch. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been restored. A monkey could do it, sir.”
Allen began touching various protuberances. Only the one active wall screen told Jason that the ship moved; there was no sensation of motion. The screen showed Earth becoming larger again, its features more distinct. The Pacific Ocean, clouded out to sea and quite a way inland. Then mountains—how fast they were flying!—followed by desert. Somewhere down there, dead below the returning wilderness, lay deserted towns, ruined cities, overgrown farmland. However, in various places RSA survivors had banded together to form small settlements, mostly ranches and farms with a few towns that cannibalized industrial machinery. Those that managed to avoid New America’s troops were growing. The United States was building again.
In Colorado lay the radioactive ruin of Peterson Air Force Base and Cheyenne Mountain. The complex had been built to withstand a thirty-ton nuclear blast, an EMP, and airborne biological warfare. NORAD had held out for a long time, waging the deadly war that finished off what R. sporii avivirus had begun. But eventually personnel had had to emerge, and RSA had been waiting. Survival rate there had been less than 2 percent. Jason didn’t know what had happened after that; information from Fort Hood about NORAD had ceased three years ago.
Jason had never served at Fort Hood, which had once been one of the largest military installations in the world, home to two full combat divisions as well as various other commands. 55,000 troops had been stationed there, many being readied for deployment around the globe. The grounds had included the world’s biggest concentration of armored military vehicles: Abrams, Bradleys, Strykers. The air had been alive with Blackhawk copters on drill, with Apaches bristling with weapon mounts, with Chinooks like whales. There had been a live testing area for antitank guns and equipment. Just before the Collapse, three domes had been built at the southern end of the base, replacing the old administrative buildings.
The domes had survived. Nearly all of the rest was gone, although Jason knew that one entire dome still housed vehicles and rescued equipment. Much of the rest of Fort Hood’s 150,000 acres was reverting to wilderness, growing amid bombed wreckage. Desert scrub was almost impossible to kill.
“Yes, that’s Fort Hood,” Jason said. “Maintain high position over the fort, and open contact. They already know we’re here.”
“Yes, sir,” Allen said.
Jason prepared himself to face—metaphorically, anyway—General William Strople.
“Fort Hood, come in. This is the spaceship Return, US Army, Colonel Jason Jenner in command. Come in, Fort Hood.”
A startled young voice said, “This is Fort Hood.”
“Colonel Jenner wishes to talk to General Strople.”
“Access protocol, please.”
Jason gave the classified codes and waited. Five minutes later, Strople’s voice sounded on the bridge. They were a long five minutes. Jason dismissed everyone from the bridge except Lieutenant Allen. Finally Strople said, “Colonel Jenner?” Still no visual.
Jason said, “Yes, sir. I’m talking to you from the bridge of the spaceship Return. I’ve had it flown here because I suspect New America of instituting the recent attack on Monterey Base in order to lure personnel to the signal station to report to HQ. They could then follow, discover its new location, and destroy it.”
Silence. Jason could almost hear Strople thinking. Unease formed in Jason’s stomach.
“Very clever. However, Colonel Jenner, you have neglected to inform HQ that the spaceship can be flown over the planet in this manner. The only intel I have is that it landed near Monterey Base and has since been flown only back and forth to orbit.”
“Sir, I reported to General Hahn that the Return had been used to bomb New America after their attack on a farming settlement nearby. The ship has been contaminated with RSA.”
“I did not receive that information.”
What? Allen turned in his chair to throw Jason a wide-eyed look. If Hahn had not shared such vital intel with her next in command…
Strople seemed to realize his mistake. He covered it with an attack. “Colonel, you are reprimanded for not reporting vital war intelligence directly to me. A letter of reprimand will be included in your file. The weaponized spaceship is now classified as the property of HQ. Land it immediately.”
Jason pressed his lips together; his spine stiffened. Colleen Hahn had not trusted Strople with crucial intel. She had, supposedly, died of RSA, which no competent CO would risk contracting—and she had been very competent. Strople had jumped several ranks in too short a time. Information tech specialist Ruby Martin said that restoring visual should have been simple for HQ techs. Jason didn’t know what was going on at Fort Hood, but every instinct in him screamed that something here was very wrong. Right after the Collapse, there had been Army bases taken over by sheer force by ambitious survivors, as if the newly fragmented United States military were some South American dictatorship.
But he could not disobey an order.
However, if he landed the Return now, there was no guarantee that it would ever take him and his soldiers back to Monterey Base. Or if it did, Strople might send a higher-ranking officer with them to take command from Jason. Would that first-star general permit Colin’s misguided Settlers to stay at the base? How would HQ treat the four Worlders whose ship this was? Jason was well aware of the prejudice in some Army circles, including top brass, against Worlders. He had even heard, through Hillson, reports of ugly prejudice at Monterey Base.