Into the Fire

  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.”

  The copilot looked at Morrison, brows raised in question.

  “Kvannis isn’t a major general, he’s got no authority to order this mission, and there’s no such thing as the Combined Military Command,” Morrison said softly. “General Molosay commands the Joint Services Headquarters. Kvannis is the Academy Commandant.” The copilot nodded.

  “Firing on our aircraft!” The Vatta pilot, Morrison noted, was doing a masterful job of acting outraged and unbelieving. “Fire on an unarmed civilian aircraft that is following an approved flight plan? What the hell for? I’m reporting you to Air Traffic Control Central.” He turned his head slightly. “Call it in, Tomas!”

  In Morrison’s earbud, the Rector said, “Iskin Kvannis…I did not see that coming. Do what you can, Sergeant Major; I’ll be doing the same. Delay any way you can.”

  “Orders. You don’t need to know more.”

  “I sure as hell do!” the pilot said. “It’s my job to fly this plane to Port Major and unload cargo, some of it with a penalty for late delivery. If I’m late, I’ll get demerits and enough of those and I get fired.”

  A fiery streak shot past the plane and exploded five hundred meters ahead. “That is your warning. Begin descent now.”

  “Well?” the pilot said. “Do we become dead heroes or—” He drew in a breath sharply.

  “What the—?” the copilot said. Two streaks of light punched through the clouds just as the interceptors came into view again, ahead of them. The planes disintegrated.

  “Hold your course,” Morrison said to the pilots.

  The plane rocked abruptly. “Turbulence from the—” the pilot began. It rocked again.

  “Trailing pair gone,” the copilot said, pointing to one of his screens.

  “The admiral did say she had something in reserve,” Morrison said.

  “Those have to be military weapons,” the pilot said.

  “I would say so, yes,” Morrison said, and went back to the survivors. Evidently Rodney had indeed taken care of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DAY 10

>   At the first delivery stop after leaving Weekes City, two hours down the road, a Stevens-Vatta employee came out and opened the rear door. “Anybody named Ky in here? Message for you in the office.”

  Ky went in and used the secure ansible connection to call Grace. “It’s the Commandant,” Grace said. “Kvannis. He called down AirDefense on our plane. The sergeant major just reported the flight is continuing.”

  “Call Rodney. Tell him it’s a signal change. Option 4-C.”

  “You have a Plan C?”

  “Of course. And further down than that. Do that, Aunt Grace, and then…who was that good guy in Transport that Morrison knew about?”

  “Major Carson and Colonel Higgs.”

  “Tell Higgs to contact me. Without telling anyone else. Say the sergeant major needs some help.”

  “What are you going to—”

  “Leaving now. New schedule. Rodney can tell you.”

  Every plan should have branches. Aunt Grace had taught her that long ago. What if, and what if that, and what if the other thing. Rafe, looking at her plan back in Port Major, had complained that it looked like a huge tree, far too many branches to be workable. Ky had ignored him. Now, with the original plan in shreds, she was glad her first what-if had been “What if the person at the top on the other side finds out what we’re doing before we get the first five to Port Major?”

  “What are we going to do?” Rafe asked.

  “We’re going to make it work. We have the nice complicated plan. And we have sufficient armament.”

  “But not bodies.”

  “We do if we move them around.”

  “But the plane…”

  “Rodney took care of it.”

  “But they’re not at Port Major.”

  Ky felt her mood rising with every objection. “I know. They’re nowhere near it. What they are near is the cache of toys Rodney’s best friend Hawker placed at intervals along the plane’s route.”

  “Toys. Like drones?”

  Ky nodded. “Equipped with a nice variety of devices.” Devices the sergeant major had obtained, after some persuasion, as well as those in various district armories. She checked the time on her implant. “Best get ready. We intercept in eight minutes.”

  “What about the sheep?”

  “Not happening. Already called off. This will be…rougher. They know something’s going on; Kvannis will have had someone warn the truck they’re in, and they’ll be trying to slip our tail, have us go on ahead. That’s why we have the second truck behind us now.”

  —

  “Possible target in behind a shopping mall,” the special ops man riding shotgun in the cab said. “Parked.”

  “Block it,” Ky said. Their truck turned at the next corner. She stood by the window, where she could see out the front of the cab. “We stop behind that angled wall. Be ready for the call when we pop their lid. Then come in right behind them.”

  She came out the side of the truck wide open, followed by the rest of the crew, including Rafe. The wall gave them cover for most of the way; the target vehicle was tucked in behind it, right up against some store’s loading dock. That would cut its crew’s visibility. She held up her hand. “We’re going over,” she said.

  “Over!”

  “Satpic from Rodney. They put themselves in a corner—listen, that’s our backup team pulling across to block them in. We can land on their roof.”

  It was not that easy, with two team members—herself and Rafe—shorter than the others. “Could wish for low-g,” Ky muttered, dragging her stomach up on the wall. But there below her was the top of the truck, pulled up close to the loading dock. The backup team had a high, distinctive truck, and one of them had already gotten out, banging on the side of the target and yelling.

  “Hey! You’re blocking the dock! We got a delivery! Move that thing!”

  Its driver came out the off side of the cab, equally furious. “You’re blocking us in! Get out of here.”

  “I need this dock. Delivery! Are you deaf? Move it!”

  Ky let herself down on the roof of the target and flattened. Rafe dropped onto the backup truck, with a perfect angle to the inside of the target’s cargo space. Another team member used his line to drop all the way to the ground between the two trucks; he looked up, and Ky dropped the door opener to him. He touched it with the charger and the lock sprang open; then he flipped the latch and pulled the door wide and continued around the side to attack the target’s driver.

  Rafe fired before she could move. “One. Clear.” He slithered over the side of the truck he was on, and dropped to the ground. Ky swung sideways, where she could watch the parking lot. So far no one seemed to have noticed anything. Early afternoon, midweek, and the shopping mall didn’t look that prosperous anyway. Most of the cars were clustered on the other side, near the entrance.

  Their other truck came around the wall, turned, and reversed toward the next loading dock, blocking more view of the target. Its driver got out, climbed up on the dock, opened the back of the truck, and set four boxes on the dock. He closed the back, going through the cargo area, and opened the side door, which faced them. Then he went around, climbed into the driver’s seat, and picked up a compad, like any driver reporting a delivery to his company.

  Ky slid down the front of the target truck and walked around to see Rafe finish off the driver. “This vehicle—what do we do with it?”

  “There’s a transport nexus about six kilometers on down that road,” their ally said. “Huge parking area, trucks and vans and buses coming and going all the time, but some park there for hours, waiting for a connection. It’s not much worse than a car to drive, this one.” He looked back and forth from Ky to Rafe.

  “Let me look at the controls,” Rafe said. Ky looked back at two of the ops team carrying a slack bald body in the usual prison outfit over to their truck. It seemed to take a long time; she went to the back and saw that the remaining two were far more sedated than the first load. It took even longer to get both of them into the truck. Ky had to stay with them, had to leave Rafe driving the wrong vehicle, with no legal ID and with two dead bodies in the back. If he were caught—she pushed that thought away and concentrated on the task at hand. They would switch trucks at the next warehouse, and since the Weekes City airport wasn’t safe, they’d have to drive different roads to a different warehouse, switch their passengers into a different truck again. Even—if things went very wrong—split them up. She was not going to give up on trying to rescue them all.

  The truck moved away from the dock, turned, backed again, then went forward. “We can pick him up at the transport nexus. How are they?”

  “Inside and alive. I’ll check with the medic.”

  The medic looked worried. “The reversal drug’s not working; it may be more than a simple sedative, or not the same one they used before. Likely they were drugged again.”

  Ky looked at the three flaccid bodies, still in their clinic clothes. She could not recognize any of the faces, and set her implant to do an analysis. “Vital signs?”

  “Two are fine on that. This one—” She pointed to one; Ky’s implant suggested Yamini with a question mark beside it. “This one’s got problems. Without a full diagnostic unit I can’t be sure what’s going on, but he’s sliding in and out of irregular breathing patterns; I’ve put him on oxygen. There’s a drug that can cause that, but there’s no easy reversal; we’ll have to hope his liver can get the job done in time. The records we yanked have them as Yamini, Lakhani, and Riyahn.”

  The truck moved on, slowed in traffic, sped up again. Ky felt chilled; the medic said, “You’d better rest while you can. We can deal with them.”

  When she woke from a brief nap, it was almost dark outside, and Rafe was not in the truck. She felt colder, though the cargo compartment was warm enough. They were a half hour from the next warehouse. Yamini, if it was Yamini, was still alive, but still unresponsive. The other two had roused enough to give their names and drink a little water
, but could not walk or change their clothes yet.

  Rodney, when Ky contacted him back at the Weekes City Vatta warehouse, was not encouraging. “Rafe had trouble at the transport nexus. He says he’ll meet you later and not to contact him.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “He didn’t say. Your first five made it to Port Major. The plane had to dodge around a bit.”

  They were safer, but were they really safe yet? She knew they would be taken to Joint Services Headquarters, and Morrison had assured her it would be safe, but she still worried. She wanted to know they were protected from the conspiracy determined to kill her, her family, her people. And she wanted to know where Rafe was, and what was happening.

  “Your friends—” she began.

  “They’re fine. Set up in another location just in case.” He sounded wistful. “Wish I’d been with them. Hawker said the range beam punched through the clouds so fast—they never use full power in training—”

  “You had a long-range beam weapon? I thought you were using drones—”

  “Well, they had drones, but Hawker said they decided not to take chances—”