Chapter 8

Victoria Station, Uganda May 26, 2031

"Soldiers, this is Suihn Dag speaking." The announcement crackled over the plane's intercom in crisp, commanding tones. "We are being diverted to a secondary airfield. You will remain in your seats now and once we land. Anyone who deviates from these orders will be disciplined."

Lara listened to the rumbling of the men and women around her. There was a mutinous edge to it. She wondered how long the Qiin and veterans who had shared the twenty-two hour flight with this batch of recruits could maintain the peace. They'd barely been off the ground in Detroit when a fist-fight broke out in the seats behind her. The plane's guards had ended the fight efficiently with weapons that fit in the palms of their hands and made a sound like a Taser. She wished she'd had time to get a better look at the weapon. Instead of thrashing around in pain like they would if they'd been shocked with electricity, the two pugilists had dropped straight to the floor and started snoring. They'd been manhandled back into their seats and slept for at least ten hours before Lara noticed one of them standing up, stretching and looking disoriented.

"What do you think this is all about?" Clay asked her.

Lara shook her head, "I don't know. We can't have a lot of fuel left. And, they've kept us circling for hours. Maybe they have to put us down somewhere and can't at the Victoria spaceport."

Clay nodded and looked back out his window. Lara considered him carefully. She'd sat next to him because he was the only seat-mate available who wasn't in an orange jumpsuit. He'd turned out to be surprisingly good company. Clay had grown up in one of the CARCENs Lara had visited as a Red Cross volunteer shortly after the destruction of Chicago. He'd accepted her cover story without question, was remarkably frank about his own history as a gangbanger, and, had immediately deferred to Lara as an authority on pretty much everything.

He was probably a foot taller than her and layered with muscle, but soft-spoken and deferential. Lara could do worse in choosing her allies than Clay. As far as she knew, they would never see each other after this flight. Still, she was glad to have him nearby for the time being.

The airfield must not have been too far from Victoria Station. Only a few minutes after the announcement, she felt the air pressure change and the plane descended.

"They can't be serious," said Clay. Lara glanced past him out the window. When she saw flickering flames, she was startled enough to lean across him for a better look.

Two rows of fire, either torches or bonfires, lined a space too dark to see. The plane's landing lights showed treetops.

"I think you'd better sit back," said Clay. When Lara didn't respond quickly enough, he pressed his arm across her upper chest, guiding her back to her seat. A few seconds later, the plane's wheels touched down hard. Whatever they landed on, it wasn't smooth. The plane jerked and bounced. Someone shrieked. An overhead bin blew open, dropping a pair of duffel bags on the floor.

Lara closed her eyes and gripped the arms of her seat. It would be absurd for her to have gone to all the trouble of infiltrating the Qiin military only to die in a plane crash on the way to basic training.

Eventually, the plane stopped bouncing and shuddered to a halt. Lara looked around. The Qiin and veterans were already on their feet, watching the new recruits with darting eyes.

"Soldiers, this is Suihn Dag speaking." The intercom wasn't quite loud enough to be heard throughout the plane over the groans and the grumbling. "If you are uninjured, you are directed to file out of the plane in an orderly fashion. If you were injured, wait in your seat until a medic can reach you." Up at the front of the plane, guards were repeating the directions to the first few rows and recruits were rising from their seats. Other guards moved through the aisles, instructing other recruits not to get up. They weren't able to move quickly enough to instruct everyone individually. The suin came on the intercom, ordering everyone back to their seats. No one listened.

Lara looked at Clay. He nodded, "Switch seats with me."

She undid her belt and slid over him as he did the same, going under her. Now that Clay was in the outside seat, any trouble would reach him first. Lara allowed herself a grateful smile.

The first recruit to step into the aisle out of turn had three guards on top of him before he could take another step. Out came the zappers and he was down on the ground. Two more men in orange jumpsuits rose out of the row in front of him and tried to grab the weapons. The guards moved faster than Lara could see and both recruits ended up on the ground.

A second knot of men rose on the far side of the plane and made to charge the exit door. A single guard stood his ground and dropped them. It was the first time Lara had seen a veteran in action. The men who'd charged him might have been in any number of prison riots, but they'd never had a chance to reach him.

With that, the insurrection was over. The guards shoved the unconscious recruits back into their seats and the remaining men and women filed out. Two of the guards, including the one who had knocked out three ex-convicts without messing up his hair were now making their way among the wounded and unconscious. One woman had a broken arm, the man next to her had what looked like a concussion. There were a half dozen other injuries. Everyone got the same treatment—a patch pressed into their skin near the point of injury. Those who had been knocked unconscious got the patch on their cheek.

As she waited for her turn to file out, Lara watched one of the patches. It started out white, slowly filling with the color of the skin it came in contact with. At some point, it became translucent. Then, it simple disappeared, either absorbed into the skin or completely dissolved. She couldn't see which.

"Doesn't seem like there's much to Qiin medicine," said Clay.

Outside, the guards were lining the recruits up in six columns on an east-facing road. The airstrip was a single runway, lined with campfires. The single runway was narrower than the wingspan of the 777 they'd flown over on. One set of landing gear had dug a deep furrow in the ground and only narrowly avoided scattering one of the fires. The jungle was cleared back only a dozen feet on either side of the strip.

By the nose of the plane, the Qiin and veterans who'd flown with them conferred. Suihn Dag, the ranking Qiin waved his hands and spoke with obvious agitation to a human. Eventually, the human walked over to stand in front of the columns of recruits.

His voice boomed loudly enough to overwhelm the muttering of the recruits, "I am Ah-human Dominic Sullivan. That means I'm roughly the equivalent of a lieutenant and I command humans. You all would be smart to shut up and listen to what I have to say. Shortly, we are going to start marching to Victoria Station. There's a road, but it's not a very good one. The station is about eight miles east of here. Many of you are already considering running off during the march. It would be very easy to do so. I don't expect many of you to care, but anyone who doesn't pass through the front gate of Victoria Station and register will have to be replaced by another conscript from their country. More importantly, if you try to run off, you will die."

He looked around, having everyone's attention, "Anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating is welcome to try. If you don't die from exposure, you are in the middle of a jungle filled with animals that would be happy to kill and eat you. Should you avoid the animals, there is a bounty on each of your heads worth slightly more than the average person living in this region will make in their entire life."

He looked over the ranked troops, "Move out."

After a few minutes of marching, the only light was the three-quarters moon overhead. Three hundred raw recruits walking in the same direction could only loosely be termed as "marching." There was a lot of noise from stomping feet and people talking to each other, some grumbling, some laughing and joking like they considered this a grand adventure. It was a good thing they weren't trying to sneak up on anyone. Crossing the jungle at night, making a good deal of noise. You didn't want to surprise a wild animal if you could help it.

"How many guys you think are still going to try to make a run for it?" Clay asked.

Lara looked around, "Could be all of them as far as I know. You going?"

Clay shook his head, "I know this is supposed to be where my people come from, but it's a little too 'Heart of Darkness' for me. I'd rather take my chances with the Qiin."

In spite of herself, Lara laughed. Then, she fell silent. Clay seemed like a decent enough person in view of his history, but she hadn't expected him to come up with many literary references. Everything she'd seen of her fellow conscripts suggested they were exactly what they appeared to be—gang members, criminals, drop-outs, and addicts; America's least educated and least educable.

Even this late at night, Lara started to sweat before too long. The air was warm and heavy with humidity. Back in Chicagoland, she'd dressed for the cold snaps that sometimes came as late as June. She'd also dressed to more credibly pass among the eighteen and nineteen year olds who had just failed the exclusion exams. The Qiin knew her real age, but she wasn't trying to fool them on this, only to avoid extra attention from her fellow recruits. Berkeley's medical center was on the bleeding edge, integrating Qiin technology sometimes years ahead of the rest of the country. As a result, much of the faculty could easily be mistaken for underclassmen, even some who were decades older than Lara.

At the first rest stop, Lara stripped off the denim jacket she'd been wearing over her black tank shirt and glanced nervously at the sky. It was impossible to ignore the constant buzzing of millions of unknown insects just beyond the edges of the road. She'd also seen a number of recruits ahead of her slapping at their necks or other exposed skin when something landed on them. She stuffed the jacket in her duffel bag after extracting a gauzy, white cotton shirt. She allowed herself a brief smile. The shirt had been one of her first gifts from John and he'd loved to see her wearing it all by itself.

Of course, that had been years ago. Her smile faded. As she stood, one of the medics approached her holding an atomizer, "Spread your arms, please."

Lara did and was rewarded with a spray of cool mist. "What is that?" she asked.

"Bug repellent," said the medic. "And an agent to regulate body temperature. It will keep you from sweating out all your liquids."

"But, what is it? Is it a chemical or..."

He tapped the side of the atomizer, "It's nanotech. All Qiin medicine is nanotech in some form or another." He looked Lara over and she saw a gleam of appreciation in his eye, "If you want to study medtech pre-enhancement, let me know. I've got access to the library. Even if you don't get on the list based on predisposition, I can get you in. It's a way out of grunt infantry anyway."

Lara considered his frank admiration and gave him a smile. She'd been wondering how to angle her way into something where she could learn Qiin science and this powerfully-built young man had dropped an opportunity in her lap. She glanced at the insignia on his uniform, "That's very nice of you, Ah'qiar..."

"Dearborn," he extended his hand to shake. "Austin Dearborn. I work out of the main medical hub. Just ask for me and I'll get you in."

Lara looked Ah'qiar Austin Dearborn over. He was powerfully built and had sandy-blond hair. Although clearly enhanced, he had a few creases and irregularities that gave him a rugged look and lessened his fearful symmetry. He also had a broad, slightly goofy grin. Lara gave him an extra-warm handshake, "Thank you, Ah'qiar Dearborn. I will do that." Without missing a beat, she added, "Is this 'welcome to the club' march standard operating procedure?"

Dearborn's face darkened, "No. This is decidedly irregular."

"Do you know what's happened?"

"I do," said the veteran. There was no hint of mirth in his face now, "But I'm not at liberty to say."

As the man turned to spray someone else, Lara got a closer look at his insignia. An Ah'qiar was the equivalent of a sergeant—not an officer, but given command over a number of qiar, the lowest ranked. A qiar rank insignia was a simple black circle. The ah'qiar symbol was bisected with a black semicircle on the bottom and a dark blue circle on top. Around the bottom of the circle were a series of small diamond insignia, three white and three yellow. They represented the number of engagements the wearer had survived. The white ones each counted for eight engagements, the yellow one. Austin Dearborn might look younger than Lara was, but he'd been in the service for years.

"Making friends already?" Clay asked. There was no malice in his grin, just amusement.

Lara shrugged, "I was actually hoping I'd get a chance to study medicine."