The turret was winding up again, and the spinning barrel angled toward us. Down through the grate I saw soldiers assembling, ready to either come up after us or secure the mess when it fell. We weren’t going to make it.
The turret open fired as Ligong closed in from above. Nix reached into his coat for something as the fire escape below us broke loose and dropped a few feet before catching again as glass and rubble showered down onto the sidewalk below.
Nix manipulated something in his hand and a bright white point appeared in the air above the street, just over the metal railing.
“He’s opening a gate!” Ligong shouted.
The point of light got brighter and brighter until it suddenly expanded into a hexagonal opening with a thin white edge that floated a half story down. On the other side, I could make out dim light and a black surface.
“Jump!” Nix called.
Several shots went off and I saw Nix’s head jerk, a honeycomb pattern flashing brightly as a round glanced off the inertial dampener. He was trying to move away when suddenly he staggered, clamping one hand down on the railing for support.
I looked back and saw Ligong was headed down the steps toward us, a graviton gun trained on Nix. She adjusted the field, and he crashed down onto his knees.
“That dampening field won’t stop the turrets!” she yelled. “I’d rather have you alive, but you’re not using that gate! Close it now!”
The airship banked around, and I squinted as the red laser flashed in my eyes. They’d realized what we were going to do, and were targeting us for real. Nix struggled to pull free of the graviton beam but could barely lift his head.
“They can contain it!” I called back. “On the ship, they can contain it!”
Ligong kept the pistol trained on Nix as she drew a stun gun from behind her back and fired.
“They can—”
I felt a jab in my neck, slapping one hand over a metal prong that trailed a thin wire.
“Sam!” Vamp shouted. He moved toward me, reaching for the needle as the wire went hot and the lights went out.
Chapter Seventeen
06:39:41 BC
“…message will repeat indefinitely as long as we can maintain the signal,” a voice said in the dark. It was faint, and tinny, like it was bleeding over the 3i’s audio tap.
My head pounded, throbbing in time with the 3i contact hearts, which had begun to fade back into view.
“…have somehow managed to alter your—”
The voice cut out as I snapped fully awake. I was lying on something soft, something plush and cool. My ears were filled with the rush of air and the low thrum of a graviton engine, and I reached out and felt smooth plastic as a chat window popped up in the dark.
Sam, are you okay? Vamp.
Yeah. You?
Yeah.
I opened my eyes and saw I was in the backseat of a posh aircar.The inside was beautiful, with a big crescent-shaped seat that was soft and smelled great. There was a table in front of me, and on the other side of it was another seat where Pei Ligong sat, looking idly out the window. Next to her was…
I sat up suddenly, and the two turned to look at me. The man sitting next to Ligong was Military Governor Jianguo Hwong himself. I’d seen his face on TV and on billboards enough to know it in my sleep. Hell, there was a statue of him in Ginzho Square. He was bigger in person than I had expected, an older guy with cropped gray hair and a leathery, lined face, but his shoulders were broad and his chest was thick. He wore a silver machine pistol on his belt, and his colored medal bars stood out against his dark gray shirt, laser-thin gold trim glinting in the sun that streamed through the window.
“Welcome back,” he said.
I looked to my left and saw Nix slumped in the seat next to me, a shock pin sticking out of the back of his neck. Only a very faint glow flickered in his eyes as he stared down at the tabletop.
“Where’s Vamp?” I asked.
“Your friend? He’s up front,” Hwong said, pointing toward the closed divider.
A shadow passed over the vehicle as we cruised underneath a massive skyway, and then I saw our vehicle reflected in a mirrored building face as we began to rocket upward. In that reflection, the Pot sprawled off into the distance, the smaller building spires falling away as we went up and up.
“What about the others?” I asked.
“The old man and the girl will be debriefed. Then he will go home and she will be held until we decide if she should be deported or not.”
“And the kid? Alexei?”
“He is being seen to.” He leaned back in his seat. “You know, a disaster was narrowly averted today. You caused us quite a bit of trouble.”
“But they didn’t…”
I trailed off as Ligong turned from the window to look at me. There was a cold, dangerous look in her eyes.
“Didn’t what?” Hwong asked. “Didn’t do anything?”
“Please,” I said, “sir, we didn’t do anything wrong— this whole thing is a misunderstanding.”
Hwong smiled faintly, and he raised one hand to quiet Ligong, who was about to interrupt me.
“I want to hear what she has to say,” he told her. He turned back to me. “Go ahead.”
“My father… I mean Specialist Shao… was just on assignment working border security at Camp Juanhai.”
“Where he met a Pan-Slav terrorist named Innuya Drugov, and her son, Alexei.”
“That’s just it, it’s a mistake. She wasn’t a terrorist. She was just one of the refugees.”
“Our intelligence confirmed she had terrorist ties,” Hwong said. “I understand this is hard to accept, and I don’t blame you, but Alexei Drugov is not the legitimate son of Innuya Drugov, and they are not from the border territory of Lobnya. A terrorist cell embedded them there, where Innuya began looking for a foreign soldier she could ply. She found one in Specialist Shao, who has blood ties to the PSE.”
“Dragan is not a—”
“He is. I’m truly sorry, but he is. I don’t know if he became a true sympathizer or if he just believed her lies and was trying to do the right thing, but her purpose was to deliver Alexei to this country as part of the biggest biological attack this world has ever seen. If we hadn’t recovered him, do you know what would have happened?”
“You’re wrong,” I said. He raised his eyebrows, and I quickly added, “Sir.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean any disrespect, but please listen. There’s more to the story you don’t know. I’ve got inside information you need to hear.”
Hwong’s face was stony, and I thought he might shut me down before he finally waved one hand at me to continue.
“The intelligence was faked,” I told him.
“Faked? Why?”
“To cover up a mistake. Some of your guys, your soldiers, are working with a haan,” I told him.
His eyes narrowed a little. “Go on.”
“A female. The haan female. She was there the night they picked up Dragan,” I said. “You’ve got guys working for her in secret, behind your back.”
“To what end?” Hwong asked.
“The Pan-Slavs weren’t going to attack us. It’s the other way around,” I said. “These guys set up some kind of secret deal with the haan to get rid of the PSE— We were going to attack them. Dragan didn’t bring the kid here as part of an attack. He was trying to quarantine him, and it got out of control. He meant to turn the evidence of all this over to you. He just never got a chance.”
Ligong glanced at Hwong.
“You’re saying the haan are behind this?” Hwong asked.
“Just one. She’s killed all but one of the guys who helped her, but the one guy left, Kang, told me he and some of your guys made a secret deal with Sillith. I’m telling you it’s true. If he’s still alive you can ask him yourself.”