Inside, this version of the signal station was small and crude, the worst one Jason had seen yet. Two muddy pallets on the floor, rations in plastic bins, three buckets of water, and the sophisticated console connected to the even more sophisticated equipment hidden somewhere in the forest outside.
Li and DeFord saluted.
“As you were. Lieutenant, Specialist, you are both commended for carrying out your part of Operation Flamingo perfectly.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I need a link to HQ.”
“Yes, sir,” DeFord said, grimacing. He knew—they both knew—what was coming. Jason had chosen DeFord carefully, knowing that he needed someone here that he could trust as much as Li. A member of J Squad, DeFord was one of those men who make unlikely but excellent soldiers: short, weakly muscled, able to think outside of Army boxes, bright as hell, and fiercely loyal to Jason, who had saved his life during the Collapse.
When he had the comm link to General Strople, he stepped back and Jason seated himself at the console. “Sir, Colonel Jason Jenner reporting a successful raid on Sierra Depot.”
“Proceed.”
There was no way to tell how much Strople already knew. The radar at Fort Hood would have tracked the movements of the Return. But unless there were additional comsats that Jason didn’t know about, something he would once have thought impossible but now was not so sure of, Strople didn’t know the rest of it.
“As per your orders, sir, I made the decision to attack Sierra Depot based on my knowledge of the situation. The enemy was using the depot as a base for their newly recovered, or imported, F-35s and armored vehicles. A concerted attack on Monterey Base from both air and land led to the start of a siege. We destroyed the force surrounding the base, but our supplies are depleted and New America could have mounted a second siege from the depot. More of my troops are lapsing into comatose states, from which medical personnel can’t extract them. My intel, as per my prior report, was that Dr. Sugiyama was being held at the depot. That raised the possibility of his cooperation with the enemy in accessing the quantum computer without its self-destructing. For all these reasons, I determined on the attack, which was carried out at oh-six hours this morning. The depot has been destroyed. An airborne unit extracted Dr. Sugiyama, who has since died of injuries inflicted by torture. Also extracted were his two young children. Sugiyama was not conscious at the time of extraction and has provided no useful intel.”
“What is the situation of the quantum computer? Is it intact?”
“Unknown, sir.”
“So you don’t know if it can still launch the nukes.”
“No, sir.”
“How did you destroy the force surrounding Monterey base?”
“With bombs dropped from the spaceship Return.”
“And how did you destroy everything at Sierra Depot, possibly including the quantum machinery?”
Jason closed his eyes, opened them again. Here it came. “The same way, sir.”
“You told me in a previous report that the spaceship was not capable of flying laterally more than a hundred miles if it was not in high orbit.”
“I did, sir.”
“Are you telling me, Colonel, that you deliberately lied to me?”
“Yes, sir.”
The voice fifteen hundred miles away remained calm, but Jason heard in it not only the anger he expected, but something like triumph. “Repeat that, Colonel.”
“I falsified information supplied to Headquarters.”
“Why?”
Because I don’t trust you, you bastard. Something is going on at Fort Hood that looks a lot like a military coup, with you as the leader of a South American–style junta.
“The Return is a diplomatic vessel, sir. It does not belong to us, and its use is predicated on the consent of the leader of the World expedition, Dr. Ka^graa. Turning it over to Fort Hood would have violated international law.”
“You do not get to make that decision, Colonel. Was your second in command, Major Duncan, a part of these acts?”
“No, sir.”
“Was she aware of the raid before it was carried out?”
“No, sir.” Another lie.
“You are hereby relieved of your command, Colonel Jenner, and are under arrest for actions that may have aided and abetted the enemy.”
A stretch to get treason out of falsifying information, but Strople could make it stick. After all, there was no one above him to dispute the charge.
Strople added, “I wish to speak with Major Duncan.”
“She is at the base, sir, and I am at the signal station. I thought it advisable for her to remain at base in case my FiVee was taken out by New America on my way here or back.”
“You’re going to wish it had been, Colonel. That would be better than what’s going to happen to you now. The signal station personnel must have been involved in directing the spaceship.”
“Information Tech Specialist David DeFord aided me. Lieutenant Li was overpowered and restrained.”
“Where is Li now?”
“Here, and still captive, sir.”
“You will release him at once, and he will arrange for me to speak to Major Duncan. Specialist DeFord is also under arrest. Who else is with you at the station? Identify yourself.”
Goldman stepped forward. “Captain James Goldman, sir.”
“Did you have prior knowledge of Colonel Jenner’s deceiving HQ about the capabilities of the spaceship?”
“No, sir.”
“Did anyone else know?”
“I have no knowledge of anyone, sir.”
Jason said, “General, no one else knew. The decision was mine. Everyone else acted on my orders, assuming that I had received them from you.”
“No one else was involved in this conspiracy?”
So now it had become a conspiracy. “No, sir.”
“Uh-huh. Captain Goldman, you will take custody of both Colonel Jenner and Specialist DeFord, relieve them of their weapons, and immediately transport them to base. There you will imprison both until further orders concerning their courts martial. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Goldman said.
“Lieutenant Li, you will remain at the signal station. Contact your perimeter patrol at the base and arrange for me to speak to Major Duncan as soon as she can be transported to the signal station.”
When the farce had finished, all the actors playing their parts, Jason turned from the console. Li, Goldman, DeFord. Plus Duncan, Hillson, and the perimeter soldier on duty, Laura DeSoto, a lifer who was also a member of J Squad. And, of course, Jason himself. Benjamin Franklin had famously written that two people can keep a secret as long as one of them was dead. This was seven people. He trusted every one of them.
In the Army that Jason had joined, this cabal would not have been possible. Personnel, information, legal documents, orders all had flowed across the country—across the world—in rapid, verifiable, closely surveilled streams. But this was not the Army that Jason had joined. This was the army of nineteenth-century isolated forts, of twentieth-century cabals and juntas, of a stray and damaged spaceship, of an enemy on American soil made up of Americans with no police to stop them from seizing whatever they wished.
I have violated my oath as an officer in the United States Army. Except—he did not believe that. Now his duty to his country lay in preserving the scientists at Monterey Base and the diplomatic mission from World, so that together they could find a solution to what had destroyed the old Army along with everything else.