Battle of Earth Read online

  “Tomorrow, first thing,” Bridgette said. Troy nodded.

  “I look forward to really getting to meet you,” Troy said. Henry bobbed his head once more.

  “I’m so glad to be here,” he said. “Thank you for letting me come.”

  Troy frowned and nodded, stepping back from the door to let Henry close it. He looked at Major White.

  “Who thought of this?” he asked.

  “Donovan, I think,” Major White said. “I just followed the orders.”

  “And didn’t think to ask whether violating every single, explicit rule about what the portal program was not allowed to do might be a problem?” Senator Greene asked.

  “He said he had approval from the top ranks,” Major White said. “Told us that we were…” He dropped his head a fraction, shame. “Told us that we were like the CIA, doing the things that needed to be done that no one else could do, but that we had to do them secretly in order to get them done.”

  Troy shook his head.

  “I need files on every one of them,” he said. “And where they’re from.”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Bridgette said.

  “It’s going to take a little while longer to get all of those together,” Major White said, then shook his head.

  Troy raised an eyebrow.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because, they’re encoded,” Major White said. “You need to have someone decode them to make them human-readable again.”

  “Why were they encoded?” Senator Greene asked. Major White shook his head, looking like he was at the point of fatigue.

  “Because we didn’t want anyone to find out about this in the event of an investigation where we had to turn over all of our files.”

  “Who can decrypt them?” Bridgette asked.

  “Me,” Major White said. “And General Donovan and his secretaries.”

  Troy shook his head.

  “We don’t bring either of them back in. Take the extra time, but if you aren’t talking to me, that’s the only thing you’re working on until it’s done.”

  “What else did the ex-General do to keep me and mine from getting at his documentation?” Senator Greene asked. “Is there anything that’s set to be destroyed automatically?”

  Major White sighed.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. He kept everything really close, if I didn’t have to have it to run the portal.”

  “I want you to show…” Troy paused, “somebody where all of the files are that you know about, their physical copies, and then I want an outside group, from the labs, to do a full search of the building with you helping them go through every nook and cranny of it.”

  “Are any rooms dangerous?” Bridgette asked. Troy blinked and looked at her. That was the first time she’d asked someone other than him a question, wasn’t it? It didn’t sound like worry so much as…

  “Other than the portal room, which is obvious, yes,” Major White said. “There are a few rooms with security protocols that can be… hazardous.”

  “How?” Troy asked.

  “Major White turned to look at him. “Sir, I tell you the truth, I didn’t want to have them installed, but General Donovan insisted. He said it was important enough to let someone die on accident, if it could prevent someone getting through who shouldn’t be there.”

  “How are they hazardous?” Troy asked.

  “Gas,” Major White said. “If you don’t demonstrate the right credentials, there are passageways that will close down and introduce chlorine gas.”

  “Chlorine?” Senator Greene asked. “That’s illegal.”

  “It kills most species,” Troy said. “Pretty simple chemistry, compared to a lot of the more sophisticated nerve agents. He wasn’t just trying to keep humans out.”

  “Or in,” Malcolm said, and Troy looked over at him.

  “Damn,” he said.

  *********

  They measured density and energy, vibration and sonar and impedance. Jesse took pictures of her using a very clever device that mixed different wavelengths of energy to come up with what was effectively a three-dimensional MRI that projected in front of her.

  Cassie had never been able to see the inside of her body like that. It was entertaining, but not that informative. As far as either one of them could tell, nothing about her had changed. And yet, the sloshy feeling was getting stronger, and Cassie was fatiguing, despite her Palta constitution.

  “You want to sleep?” Jesse asked. She sat down on the bed, running her fingers over the backs of her arms, feeling the electronics there, making sure that they were stable. She locked them, then nodded.

  “I need her to tell us what she wants,” she said. “I don’t know how to get her to talk.”

  Jesse sat down next to her, looking in her ear. She let him.

  “Well, she isn’t doing anything bad as far as we can tell, right now, so I don’t see any harm in letting her take her time at it.”

  “We aren’t compatible,” Cassie said. “I can feel that much.”

  He took her hand, spreading her fingers with his fingertips, then leaning down over her palm, tracing things with his finger.

  “We need an emergency bail-out solution,” he said. “But I think it’s sleep you need, right now.”

  She nodded, going to the bathroom to change into soft, natural-fiber pajamas. She thought about the shower, a hot, glass box that could very nearly run enough water to fill itself, if she turned it up high enough, but while the heat sounded good, rest sounded better. She went back into the main room and got into bed, pulling heavy, thick blankets up over her shoulder.

  “I’ll watch over you, tonight,” Jesse said. Mere hours earlier, she’d have mocked him for it, but her mood had changed. She reached up to touch his chin, then rolled onto her side and closed her eyes.

  *********

  They brought him back to the General’s compound and Bridgette walked down the main hallway like it was hers. Troy followed with somewhat more discomfort. He’d loved working for General Thompson, but that was back when he’d just been a Captain, and coming to speak directly with the General felt like going to the Principal’s office. With Donovan, Troy being there had been more of a normal thing - as a Major in charge of a large lab, and later as Cassie’s handler, he had been important enough to merit direct interaction - but he’d always hated having to talk to Donovan because the man was… slick. He knew what he wanted, and he was clearly willing to manipulate anyone he needed to, to get it.

  Bridgette sat down at the first of two desks, going through the top drawer to find a pen and paper and starting to make notes. She glanced up at Troy and he felt very childish.

  “You really expect me to use the General’s office?” he asked.

  “I do if you expect to get any work done,” she said. “They’ve told me that the officer’s offices in the main building are on a core hallway, and that there aren’t any points for assistants to choke access.”

  “That was kind of the point,” Troy said. “If we needed to go talk to someone, we did.”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh, Major, you have so much to learn. You aren’t going to get a thing done, if anyone who needs to talk to you can knock on your door. Your time, especially until you get everything sorted out, is incredibly valuable, and it’s my job to make sure you use it as carefully as possible. Colonel Levine is on his way now, and I have my work cut out for me, to get the documents you need, just to get started. So you should go in, get settled, and be ready to ask the Colonel the questions you actually want answered by the time he gets here.”

  Troy took a step back.

  “If Olivia…” he started, then frowned. Shook his head. Olivia only had his e-mail and his cell phone. If she was going to try to get in touch with him, it wouldn’t be through Bridgette.

  “Sir,” Bridgette said, tipping her head down a fraction. “You don’t have time for personal distractions. Not today and not tomorrow. I don’t plan on going home to
night, but if you want to give me your key, I can get you some personals and have them for you, if you want to shower or change.”

  He paused.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll call someone and ask them to swing by to get my keys. But you’re right.”

  She nodded, and he turned, looking at the double doors that went to the base commander’s office.

  His office.

  He went and pushed them open, letting them fall closed behind him and he stood alone, there in the office, looking at the monstrosity Donovan had made it into.

  It was all black metal and glass; the windows were shaded and the desk was empty. Hollow. He shook his head and went to open the blinds. It was better with light, but not much. He went to the desk and pulled the chair away, going through the drawers. They were mostly locked, and he couldn’t find any keys. He pushed the red button on his phone and it beeped twice, politely.

  “Yes, sir?” Bridgette asked.

  “I can’t get into my desk, and I hate my chair,” he said.

  “I’ll get facilities here to break into the desk after Colonel Levine leaves,” she said, “and I’ll have a catalogue of office furniture for you to look at.”

  “Thank you,” he said, sitting down. There was no better word for it; he felt pretentious. He was just a lab rat. King of the lab rats, sure, but that was all he’d been supposed to do. Base management had an entirely different chain of command, and he’d been glad that it branched at Colonel Oliver, and that Jamie Oliver had been there to shield all of the lab officers from the nasty politics that happened, up here.

  Donovan had gotten rid of all of Thompson’s guys as fast as he could do it. Good men, most of them. They’d only done what they’d done because you had to play hard, if everyone else was going to. That was how efficient resource allocation happened, and Troy understood it. He just didn’t want to play that game. So long as his lab produced the results everyone expected, he’d been free to staff and run it the way he liked.

  He went to try the filing cabinets, but they were all locked, too. The only drawer that was unlocked on Donovan’s desk was the middle one, so all Troy had ready when Bridgette opened the door to escort Colonel Levine into the office was a pen.

  “I need a computer,” Troy said. “How does he not have a computer?”

  “Donovan didn’t trust them,” Colonel Levine said, coming to sit in one of the chairs in front of Troy. “Said someone was always listening on them.”

  “He wasn’t wrong,” Bridgette murmured. “I’ll put in an order for one. In the meantime, I’ll get you a pad of paper.”

  Troy grimaced, then shook his head and sat down, tapping the hard surface of the desk with his pen. Granite, maybe. Or some kind of really, really hard wood, with a veneer on it. Troy couldn’t tell.

  “Hell of a thing,” Levine said, his military dress shoe tapping very slowly over open air as he sat with crossed legs. “You being on that side of that desk. Me being here.”

  “You think it ought to be you, here?” Troy asked. Levine shrugged.

  “Rational world, it would be me over there,” he said. “But this isn’t a rational world. I run an intergalactic hyperloop.”

  Troy shifted.

  “You understand why they chose me to try to start pulling things back together?” he asked. Levine grimaced.

  “Yeah, birds of a feather all get axed together.”

  Troy felt the corner of his mouth go up.

  “That, indeed. So. You’re on the other side of the wall. There are a lot of things we’re not allowed to talk about, but I have to ask you a lot of questions anyway.”

  Levine nodded.

  “Donovan wanted all of the juicy details,” he said.

  “How did you deal with that?” Troy asked. Levine grinned. It was a mirthless grin, almost predatory, but it had the sense of a life-long card player more than malice.

  “I was on the other side of that wall a long time before I retired,” he said. “Donovan wanted someone to come in and start up a new hot room, he needed someone who could teach ‘em how to do the math, he came to me.”

  “You’re an officer from before he was here?” Troy asked.

  “No,” Colonel Levine said. Paused. “I was a civilian.”

  Troy felt his face go lax.

  “That’s not possible.”

  Levine shrugged.

  “I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but the General was capable of just about anything he thought was necessary to get done what he wanted done.”

  “How in hell did he make you an officer, never mind a Colonel, without you being in the service?” Troy asked. Levine shook his head.

  “I worked under Colonel Pau for two decades,” he said. “What I’m doing isn’t all that military-y, really. I run a squad of nerdy math-majors in thick glasses, and I enforce the rules about who they are and aren’t allowed to talk to. It’s more like hazing a frat house than it is being in the military, but he needed the title for me to be able to run the room.”

  “That’s not possible,” Troy said again. He frowned. “Sir…” He hated himself for it, but the man was, as far as Troy knew, a Colonel. “… I’m going to have to strip you of your rank.”

  “I figured you would,” the man said. “I’m no fan of Donovan’s methods, but when someone shows up at your door offering you what he offered me, you take it and you worry about what’s going to come next later.”

  Troy shook his head.

  There was no more point asking Levine about himself; there would be a full investigation into how he’d gotten his title and compensation and what the Air Force needed to do about reclaiming one or both.

  “You have the right to legal representation,” Troy said, “but I’m not going to ask you any more questions about your role or how you got it. I want to know about the men working for you.”

  “I’ll be careful not to incriminate myself,” Levine said with a dry humor. Troy nodded, drawing a breath and sighing.

  “Where did they come from?”

  “I knew the hiring rules,” Levine said. “Same as for jumpers, if you don’t know ‘em. Probably the labs, if I had to guess.”

  “Jump school is stricter,” Troy said, and Levine nodded.

  “We honored them. Donovan wanted to hire all new, so that there wasn’t any contamination from the existing group of portal engineers, but it was a hell of a thing, trying to get them ready to do the work, so we eventually pulled a few of the ones I’d worked with, before. The rest of them came from graduate and PhD-level math programs around the country. Full background checks and interviews.”

  Troy nodded.

  That Donovan had been able to hide this part of it didn’t surprise him at all. The technology behind the portal was so closely-held, no one but the men and women on that side of the wall would have even known something was happening, and the only contact they were supposed to have with any of the base officers was with Donovan himself.

  There was no accountability.

  “All right,” Troy said. “I need the personnel records for all of them,” he said, and Levine nodded.

  “My office can send them over. I’ve let them all know what’s happening.”

  Troy nodded slowly.

  “Until further notice, you are relieved of duty.”

  He’d done this in the wrong order. He needed to talk to the officer in charge of the existing portal room, so he could get a grasp of the procedures they used to handle staffing and protocol enforcement, before confronting Levine.

  “I understand,” Levine said, standing.

  “Please,” Troy said. “I need to get my hands around this. Would you wait here one moment?”

  Levine shrugged.

  “If you like.”

  Troy got up and went to the doors, glancing back at Levine once, then going out into the front hallway. Celeste was sitting on a bench. She stood, charging him.

  “Dude,” she said, “Conrad is awesome, but he hasn’t got a clue what t
o do with that thing, and neither have any of the rest of us.”

  “Hi, Celeste,” Troy said. “Bridgette, can you get Colonel Pau here ASAP?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Bridgette said, picking up her phone. Troy turned back to Celeste.

  “We’ve had stowaways make it through before,” he said.

  “That thing’s bigger than most whales,” Celeste said. “What do you expect us to do with it?”

  “Get the papers from the guards, find out where it was going, research them and make a call on whether or not to bring them in to consult.”

  “Doing that,” Celeste said. “But what do we do with it?”

  “Involve the biology department and collect data, figure out what we can about how to take care of it,” Troy said.

  “Apart from the fact that no one’s willing to poke it, we’re doing that, too,” she said. “But what in hell do we do with it, Rutger?”

  He sighed.

  “Call the zoo,” he said. She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow.

  “What now?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Ask if they can spare one of their big animal experts for a day. You fly there, he flies here, do it by video conference, whatever you need. Ask him, in theoretical terms, what they would do if someone shipped them a previously-undiscovered animal from an unknown location whose size is… Well, don’t be entirely truthful about how big it is,” he said.

  “That’s not legal,” Celeste said. “They’re going to know that we’ve got something living here.”

  Troy shook his head.

  “You imply, cleverly, that we’re dealing with it on the far side of a jump. And…” he snapped at Bridgette. She gave him a sharp look that told him that had been the wrong decision, but she raised her head anyway. He dropped his chin, a quick apology, then motioned.

  “Can we get a blank copy of the NDAs that were scaring everyone?” he asked.

  “Easily,” Bridgette said. “I assume you want to read it before asking a civilian to sign it?”

  Troy looked at Celeste.

  “Take it to legal. Take out anything that’s over-the-top evil or that you or they are uncomfortable with, and have him sign it.”