No Man's Land Page 7

  The three soldiers left. Val tried to get a better view of the Godzilla, except the screen turned off at her touch. Probably set off an alarm. Good, it will keep them on edge.

  An hour later, Gideon returned Val’s gear bag and led her to a shuttle along with six armed guards.

  “Tell your pilot to land two kilometers from the crater,” she ordered Gideon.

  After they reached cruising altitude, Gideon sat across from her with his STR-23 rifle in his lap. Val ignored him as she prepped and calibrated her instruments.

  When they landed, Val had them wait thirty minutes before opening the hatch. Not that they could out fly an explosion, but the vibrations from the landing should have settled by then. Gideon’s impatience grew, causing his men to tense up as he bore the wait with ill humor.

  At the end of thirty minutes, Val said, “Your men will stay here, Sergeant.” She paused to let him refuse. He didn’t disappoint.

  “It’s not up for debate,” she said, keeping her tone even. “Normally, this is a one-person operation. Explosives are temperamental, and ones that have burned through an atmosphere and crashed are overly sensitive to the slightest vibrations. The more feet tromping around, the higher the risk of setting the damn thing off.” Val rummaged in her bag. Pulling out two pairs of soft-feet, she handed one set to Gideon. “Put them on the bottom of your boots. They’re hard on the ankles, but sore ankles are worth not dying.”

  They exited the shuttle and covered the two klicks in silence. Val noted the air was cool and dry. A breeze blew from the east, stirring the lifeless soil. Nothing except a few clumps of rocks and a couple smaller indentations marked the empty expanse.

  When they reached the edge of the crater, Val surveyed the damage. “How long ago did this hit?”

  “That’s classified,” Gideon said.

  “You’re going to make this as difficult as possible for me, aren’t you, Sergeant?”

  “I have my orders, Sergeant,” he shot back.

  And that would be a yes. She climbed down the steep side of the crater. Grabbing a handful of scorched dirt, she rolled it around her palm and smelled it. She moved to another area and repeated the test. Val wiped her hands and followed the path of impact until she neared the Godzilla. It was half buried.

  Opening her pack, she removed her sniffer. She stood downwind from the MFG-66, testing the air for chemical leakage. Then she sampled the soil. The Godzilla’s casing hadn’t ruptured on impact, the good news. The impact had happened a few weeks ago, the bad news. An already old bomb—the Godzillas hadn’t been manufactured in the last seven years—combined with chemicals degrading on the ground created one twitchy bomb.

  Which raised the question, why didn’t they just set it off with one of their own explosive devices? She asked Sergeant Gideon.

  “Classified,” he said.

  Something stank. And it wasn’t the burnt fuel.

  Val mulled over the few facts and watched Gideon’s expression as she theorized aloud. “You tried to trigger it, but the Godzilla’s defensive scrambler sent your bombs wide, which explains the other two impact craters.”

  He kept his neutral demeanor, but a slight twitch in his jaw gave him away. She was on the right track. Val gestured to the bomb. “This is a recent hit. Which should be impossible due to your shield. Our ships no longer carry the Godzilla. It could have been launched from a Hermit ship. But, again your shield should have destroyed it.”

  His eyebrows rose, but he smoothed them just as quick. “Is that what the G stands for in MFG?”

  “That’s what we call it. There is a technical name the higher ups use.”

  “What does the MF stand for?”

  “Official or ours?”

  “Yours.”

  “We refer to that device as the Mother Fucking Godzilla.”

  Gideon laughed, and the tension between them slipped a few notches. Until Val realized he had been trying to distract her from putting all the clues together.

  She picked up the thread of logic and gathered it. “Someone sliced into your collective and turned off your shield just long enough for the Godzilla’s entry. Didn’t they?”

  “That’s impossible. No one has sliced into our collective.”

  Yet he had stiffened as if she had hit a nerve.

  With Gideon a step behind her, she approached the bomb. The vibrations in her chest increased ten-fold as sweat dampened her uniform. The number of times she’d defused a bomb didn’t matter. Each had its own quirks and challenges. Each one could be her last. Each caused the adrenaline to rush through her body.

  The bomb appeared to be far bigger than the standard Godzilla, but the outside markings matched. After confirming the absence of dangerous chemicals, she located the access panel.

  Val handed Gideon the sniffer. “If this reads over ten parts per million, tell me.”

  He nodded.

  Glad her hands remained steady, she opened the panel, revealing the bomb’s innards. She stared at the complex twist of wires, circuit boards and switches. Except she didn’t recognize the configuration. Not right away. When she understood just what sat in front of her, she cursed.

  “What’s wrong?” Gideon asked.

  She replaced the panel and backed away, pulling the sergeant with her. Val didn’t stop until they reached the crater’s edge.

  “What’s—”

  “I need to speak with my colleague,” she said.

  “The bullet pilot? Why?”

  “It’s classified.”

  Now it was Gideon’s turn to curse. “This better not be some stunt or attempt to influence the treaty negotiations.”

  “It’s not.”

  He stared at her. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “It’s a Death Star,” she whispered to Lieutenant Leo. They were in the conference room and she suspected it had been bugged, but she needed to talk to Leo.

  “Holy shit with a halo and a white robe! Are you sure?”

  “Unfortunately. Are the treaty negotiations going badly for us?”

  “I don’t know. You can ask the ambassador, he’s at the J-9 capital. That is if he’d talk to you.” Leo swept a hand through his non-regulation shaggy hair. “Damn girl! Can you disarm it?”

  “No. Not alone. It’s wired so you need two people, working in tandem.”

  “But you’ve done it before. Right?” A crazed hope shone in Leo’s eyes as he clutched her sleeves.

  “In the simulator, with my assistant. We had one successful session.” And only one other team had managed to duplicate it. Not a real achievement since they stopped training on it when the planet-wide shields proved to be an effective defense against the Death Star. Which had been the point. Intell on the Death Star’s incredible power had leaked before the device was ready to launch. The panic had been epic.

  “Out of how many practice sessions?” Leo asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Time to vacate the premises.” Leo stood.

  “They won’t let us go.” Val went up on tip-toe and whispered in his ear. “The Death Star is in delay-action mode.”

  Leo’s face paled to pure white. He swayed. “Why bother to send us?”

  “Think about it,” Val said. She had. During the trip back to the base, she did nothing but mull it over.

  Her theory wasn’t pretty. Mother Earth had signed a cease-fire with Jupiter Nine because the colony had been winning the war. The planet-wide shields had countered Mother’s one effective offense. With J-9’s new guerilla attacks on Mother Earth’s bases, Val suspected Mother had to be desperate. So Mother played nice with J-9, sending an ambassador and his retinue to negotiate terms and conditions. Once inside the shield, one of the team had probably managed to shut the shields down long enough for a bomb to slip through.

  Mother probably acted surprised. How did that happen? Must be from a Hermit ship from the past since it was an old MFG-66. We’ll send our best expert to take care of it for you. Except the expert wa
sn’t qualified to disarm a Death Star—no one was. And after the expert “triggered” the bomb, Mother would be all apologetic to the UFoP. Oops, our mistake. Sorry. Someone must have stolen the schematics to the YFS-97, a.k.a. Death Star or as the late Sergeant Val Harris liked to say, You’re Fucking Screwed in ninety-seven different ways.

  Val admitted it was an elaborate ruse to appease the UFoP, but she suspected Mother Earth would rather turn J-9 into an asteroid belt, than turn it over to the Jups without a pay-back contract. She was a spiteful bitch that way.

  Val could almost hear the gears and switches humming inside Leo’s head as he put the clues together.

  “And here I’d been worried I’d be forced into retirement. Far better to retire than be a flipping martyr,” Leo said.

  “Actually, to be a martyr, you have to be the one to decide. In this case, we’re being sacrificed.”

  “Thanks for taking away the only shred of dignity I had left. Did you torture animals when you were little, too, Sergeant?”

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Kiss your ass good-bye and find someone willing to fuck your brains out before the big bang.”

  Val frowned at the lieutenant. He was not helping. Conflicting emotions churned inside her, Val had been glad the Death Star program had never been activated—the loss of life would have been astronomical. Plus it sickened her. But she was loyal to Mother Earth and felt she was right to expect to be compensated for all that hard work in colonizing a planet. Her warring thoughts connected and produced a blast of inspiration.

  “Lieutenant, can you contact the ambassador and tell him I need to speak with him?”

  “You have a plan?” Leo asked.

  “I have an idea.”

  “Bless your wicked little heart.” Leo pounded on the door and demanded they be taken to the ambassador.

  Surprisingly, Sergeant Gideon agreed, escorting them to another interrogation room thinly disguised as a conference room.

  The ambassador swept in a couple hours later with a scowl already deepening the lines on his wide forehead. “Report, Lieutenant. And it better be important or you’ll both be court marshaled for interfering.”

  Val studied him. A thick, but powerful build, receding hairline with enough gray to appear respectable. His agitation seemed genuine. Leo glanced at her to begin. Time to test the extent of his knowledge. Did he know he was on a suicide mission?

  Keeping her voice pitched low, she explained the situation.

  At first, the ambassador huffed in disbelief. “No one on my team could have taken down their shields.” But soon his survival instincts kicked in. “There was mention of a Hermit when we flew in. Are you one hundred percent sure it’s a YFS-97, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. No doubt.”

  “I never should have pissed off General Reffan,” the ambassador said. “The old bastard never forgot and here I am, thinking I’d been promoted.”

  And Val had thought she was useful for the first time in years. Leo’s sad gaze matched hers. Another old soldier who had outlived his usefulness. She let the bout of self-pity run its course, then shook it off.

  “Ambassador, you need to inform the Jups of the situation,” she said.

  “So they can tell the UFoP before we blow to smithereens? How much time do we have?”

  “Not enough to argue with me, sir.” She ignored his outrage. “They have the right to know, and I need the complete and unquestioning cooperation of Sergeant Gideon. The only way he’ll give it to me is if he’s ordered to by a superior officer. Plus he should know what he’s dealing with.”

  “You’re going to try to disarm the cursed thing?” Leo asked.

  “Yes. There’s not enough time for an evac, it’s either try or do what you suggested earlier, Lieutenant.”

  Leo leered at Val. “I knew you’d see it my way eventually.”

  The ambassador, though remained confused. “Why not have the lieutenant help you? That way we don’t have to say a word to the Jups.”

  Val poured a glass of water. She handed it to Leo. “Please take a drink, Lieutenant.”

  He lifted the glass and downed the contents in one gulp. When he handed it back, Val took it from his shaky hand. Too much time spent at Kasner speed affected the nervous system. He was okay to fly, but disarming the Death Star would take a steady hand.

  “What are the odds of success, Sergeant?” the Ambassador asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “That bad?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A what? Sergeant Harris, you’re not making sense,” Gideon said. “What the hell is a Death Star?”

  She suppressed a sigh. His superior officer ordered him to cooperate with her without hesitation or question, but failed to state a reason, leaving that bit of nasty news to Val. “The bomb buried in your planet is a YFS-97 not a MFG-66. It’s carrying enough energy to destroy your entire plane, and it’s set to go off in twelve hours.” They had wasted six precious hours talking with the J-9 authorities.

  He rocked back on his heels as if she had punched him. “You’re wrong. They’ve been obsolete since the shields.”

  “According to your people, it managed to slip through when the shield opened to allow a supply ship to land. With the right timing, dead accurate maneuvering, and the bomb’s special coating, which makes it invisible to your sensors, it is possible.”

  “But it was shot from a Hermit ship sent over a decade ago. It wouldn’t have the latest tech.”

  She waited, letting him realize the Hermit either had been a decoy or another ship disguised as one. Unlike Val, Mother Earth hadn’t given up on the YFS-97 program.

  He blanched as fear widened his eyes and his lips parted. “Shit.”

  Val watched as Gideon swiped a hand over his face, wiping away the horror and transforming into a soldier. He straightened and met her gaze. Black stubble peppered with gray darkened his strong chin. She wondered if he had a wife and kids or a girlfriend waiting for him at home. Or if he was, like her, married to the job.

  “What do you need from me, Sergeant?” he asked.

  “Hold out your hands.”

  He did. They were rock steady.

  “I need you to make the impossible possible.”

  Gideon quirked a smile. “Is that all? And here I was worried.”

  They returned to the crater. This trip was completely different than their first. Gideon sat next to her and she explained everything she could remember about the Death Star. Since a delay-action device was a different beast than an unexploded one, the shuttle could land right at the crater’s edge.

  Val removed both access panels. They were located on opposite sides. Pointing out the important circuits and wires to him, she said, “At times, my instructions will seem counter-intuitive, but you need to do exactly what I say. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  When Gideon called that he was ready, a cold wave of terror washed through her. The only successful disarms had been with teams of two females. She should have requested a female sergeant.

  “Harris?” Only Gideon’s face could be seen above the bomb’s body. “Let’s do this.”

  Pulling in a deep breath, Val stared at her hands. Despite her out-of-control heart rate and her guts turning to liquid, they remained still.

  “Al l right, Gideon. Located the red-and-black wire that has been twisted with a green-and-yellow one. On the count of three, cut the red-and-black wire.” She positioned her wire cutters then glanced up. Gideon stared at her, waiting.

  She said, “One. Two. Three.” Snip. Val braced for the roar, the flash of light, but nothing happened.

  This is going to be pure hell. Consider the alternative, Val. Right.

  “Okay, now I want you to cut the green-and-yellow wire on three.”

  Once again he met her gaze while she counted, cutting the wire without looking at his wire cutters. Her assistant hadn’t done that. Anxiety boiled in her stomach.

  She contin
ued with the initial sequence. If the steps weren’t done in order and in tandem, the Death Star would detonate. The device’s internal clock couldn’t be stopped or disconnected without severing the contacts with the explosives. In other words, there were no shortcuts.

  Val had lapsed into a rhythm, when Gideon broke her concentration.

  “Harris that’s insane. You’re sending current into the pads. It should be diverted.” Little streams of sweat ran down the sides of his face.

  “Twist the wires together on my count.”

  “No. You’re a Godzilla expert. They sent you to fail, remember?”

  Ouch.

  “You’re going to kill us all,” he said with a voice pinched tight with panic. “There are over five million people living on this planet. I won’t do it.”

  She tried logic. “We’re all going to die anyway.”

  “But I won’t…can’t be the reason.” Gideon stepped away from the panel.

  “Damn it, Gideon. We were working. Ninety-five percent of the simulated sessions had failed by this point.” She made up the statistic; it sounded reassuring and was close enough to the truth.

  He paused.

  “Stop thinking. This baby is unlike anything you’ve dealt with before. But I have experience. Now twist those wires on three, Sergeant.”

  Gideon nodded and returned to the bomb. Val allowed a second of cool relief to flow through her burning muscles before she counted.

  As they worked, Val disconnected from what might happen to the task at hand. But statistics caught up to her. Two people cutting, splicing, and re-wiring circuit boards at the exact same time was near impossible.

  The YFS-97 shuddered and activated with a series of clicks. She jumped back.

  “What happened?” Gideon asked.

  “We’re done.”

  “But we were so close!” His voice rose in panic. “Why didn’t it explode?”

  Her thoughts jumbled, twisting until they resembled the pulled out guts of the Death Star. Kaboom, kaboom—where’s the kaboom? Leo had the right idea, I should be on the floor with Gideon, spending my last minutes—