“We’re ready, Speaker.”
This is it, then, he thought, staring out the window at the landscape passing rapidly underneath. He let his eyes scan the eastern horizon, where Arroyo was just now coming into view.
“Put the call through.”
“Something’s happening down there,” Montero said.
Adela and Woorunmarra, called to the Commander’s office moments earlier, sat wordlessly and waited for him to continue.
“We’ve been tracking a Westland aircraft—a small shuttle or supply hopper—since it crossed Arroyo about a half hour ago. As far as we can tell, it appears to be on an approach pattern to the Joint Dominion Capitol.”
“A sneak-in of some kind?” Woorunmarra asked.
“Doubtful. Anything fissionable would be scanned immediately, and it’s too small to be carrying much of any other kind of threat. It could be carrying biologicals, but that’s unlikely. It would be easier and more effective to launch something like that ballistically.”
“How far into Eastland is it now?”
Montero glanced once at his terminal screen. “About a hundred fifty kilometers.”
Woorunmarra sat straighter in his chair. “But… why haven’t they been shot down? Are they flyin’ too bloody low to be detected, or shielded somehow from ground-based monitors?”
Montero shook his head. “No. In fact, they seem to be purposely flying an easily detectable course. They’re holding at a steady altitude and flying on a direct heading with no deviation at all. Whatever they’re up to, they seem to want to be seen.”
“Have you attempted to contact Speaker Niles?” Adela asked. “Or has he been in touch with you about this?”
“I’ve tried to reach him, but he is ‘unavailable at this time.’ Whatever it is he’s doing, I’m not entirely sure his full staff is aware of it.” Montero pivoted his chair away from the terminal, pulling at his moustache with thumb and forefinger. “We have intercepted a communication from the aircraft; it’s on a coded signal, however, routed to Eastland through Newcastle.”
“Coded?” Adela said, puzzled. “We should be able to break most of the military codes by now. What does linguistics make of it?”
“That’s just it.” Montero reached for the terminal and spun it around so the two of them could see the screen. “It’s not a military code at all.”
“Wait a minute…” Billy leaned forward, peering intently into the screen at the gibberish scrolling across its surface. He raised a questioning eyebrow and Montero nodded. The Lieutenent crossed to the desk and tapped a fingertip against the screen, causing a sequence of numbers to enlarge and redisplay themselves in a window at the bottom. “Look at the prefixes. That’s a diplomatic code sequence.” He stared at the screen a few moments longer, then tapped once more on the glass, freezing a second set of numbers which also reappeared in the window. He retook his seat, nodding in apparent understanding.
“I recognize those two sequences.” He pointed at the terminal. “I should; I’ve used them enough times in setting up calls to Niles and Salera. I haven’t a clue as to the rest of what’s there, but this is a direct line they’ve set up between them. A ‘hot line.’ ”
“My God,” Adela breathed. “It’s him. He’s on board the craft himself.”
Montero sat quietly, considering this for several moments, then swung the terminal around and jabbed at the keys, saying, “I want a class-three combat shuttle prepared immediately.”
Adela glanced at Woorunmarra and, seeing that he was as stunned by what the Commander had requested as she, jumped to her feet. “But we can’t,” she almost pleaded. “A military strike would be a violation of our own quarantine.”
The Commander stood, fastening the top button of his uniform, and crossed purposefully toward the door. It slid open at his approach. “Don’t worry, Doctor,” he said, turning back. “I don’t intend to violate anything or anyone. We’re going down as observers only, fully shielded. They possess no weaponry that can breach the shielding on a class three, at least none that can safely be used in the vicinity of the Capitol.”
He exited the room, then stopped in the corridor and turned back. “Well, are you two coming or not?”
“Have us scanned again, then!” Amasee yelled into the helmet comm over the rushing wind, and stared out the window at his elbow.
They had an escort now.
Two fully armed fixed-wing aircraft had appeared from the south and now rode along at a discreet distance from the starboard side. A larger hopper, easily three times their size, shadowed them on the other. He couldn’t see it, but he knew there was another craft somewhere above, and behind, them.
The two pilots watched the aircraft that boxed them in but remained calm, concentrating their efforts on flying the hopper and staying on course without alarming the escort in any way.
“I have,” Salera responded finally. His voice was incongruously low and measured in his headphones; but then, he was sitting in an office or command post, and not flying squarely within the targeting sights of four armed aircraft. “But what does that tell me? You’re carrying no weapons-grade fissionable material, and judging from your speed and power output you seem to be flying empty, or nearly so. Why should I trust you?”
The Westland Speaker turned at a sudden sound. Another aircraft, a fifth, passed noisily over them and took position several hundred meters in front of the hopper. Its guns, he saw, had been rotated to bear on them, and a sudden high-pitched beeping from the command console told him that yet another missile had been locked on them.
“Why shouldn’t you?” was his response. “What possible threat do I pose?”
There was a long silence. “Stay on your present heading until you reach sector…” He paused, then, “… two-two-nine. Your escort will conduct you then to the military base at—”
“No! I’m landing at the facilities at the parkade!” He caught himself, forcing his emotions back down. “We have to meet at the Capitol. What I have to say is official state business and will not be conducted at an airstrip.”
Salera waited a full minute before replying. “All right, then. I’ve just given an order for the landing area to be cleared. Follow your escort down and land where they indicate.”
“Thanks, Kip.”
The other’s response was immediate. “Do not deviate from the flight pattern. If so much as a stray gust of wind moves you a meter off course, you’ll be incinerated before you know what happened.”
Niles looked to the two pilots in front of him. He had patched the private communications channel into their comm panel when the first of the Eastland aircraft had appeared, allowing them to hear what was being said. He owed them that much. Ponde turned to him and nodded, a reassuring smile on his face.
“Do you understand, Niles?”
“Yes. I understand.”
The combat shuttle Kestrel fell out of the sky unchallenged by Eastland forces and landed to one side of the circular parkade in front of the Capitol. Immediately upon touchdown, the shield was modified to a dome that securely covered the shuttle while it rested on the surface. Montero had informed Speaker Salera personally of his intentions to observe whatever was about to happen, and had requested a landing spot be cleared for them. Salera had balked, of course, but relented when convinced that he had little choice in the matter.