Machinations (19 page)

I don't know what changes his mind, but he gives me one last look before becoming the man I need. “Air support,” he says to Clarence, still maintaining eye contact with me. “Get ahold of our team in the air. Tell them we need a diversion…”

I smile, watching him come alive with purpose. He returns to his previous post in front of one of the many walls decorated with moving pictures, just as Clarence brings the flight captain on screen. Behind the black opacity of his flight mask's visor, it's impossible to read the man's expression, but when he speaks, he sounds uncertain.

“This is Mountain Eagle One reporting. What can I do you for, McKinley?”

“I'm going to need you and your men to alter your heading,” Camus begins, and goes on to relay the precise instructions for the rescue mission. When he's finished, not having to fight the pilot too hard on the change of plans, it's decided the air team will take the machines from the rear.

“Give them something else to worry about,” he adds with a little relish. “Clarence, contact the extraction team. Give them the order.”

Our new plan's not unlike what Samuel and I did back in the wilderness, challenging the machines' programming, forcing it to actually think and prioritize. Never fails to break down some of their efficiency. “I like it,” I say. “So long as it works.”

Camus gets Rankin back on the horn. “Status report, Lieutenant.”

“We're holed up in some old manufacturing plant on the east side of the city,” Rankin says. “Fine, for now. But we're expecting company in the next few minutes.” We can see the men scrambling to throw up makeshift fortifications, anything to either stop or at least slow down their enemies.

“I've got reinforcements in the air, and an extraction team en route now.” A reluctant and nervous extraction team, captain aside. But still.

“Well, hell.” Rankin breathes out in relief. “Best news I've gotten today.”

“Tell your men to prepare. It's not likely to be a clean break.”

“It hasn't been so far. I'll tell them.”

While we're waiting for all the players to get into position, Meir interrupts as a talking head on the wall. “
What
do you think you're doing?” she demands, for once making no effort to hide her irritation. I don't know whether she's speaking to Camus or me, but I answer before he has a chance to.

“What we're
doing,
Commander Meir, is saving your men's lives. If you have a problem with that, maybe we can discuss it at the next meeting.”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I do have a problem with it. My air team has accomplished their mission. They've done what was required of them. You can't throw them back into the fire for some…suicide mission!”

“You say suicide mission. I say rescue mission. Besides, they're
your
men down there. Don't you care what happens to them?”

Her lips pull into a tight line, as if she's tasted something rank. I seem to have that effect on people sometimes. “Of course I do. Don't mistake me for being inhuman, Commander. But as you should know, as leaders we must at times make the tough decisions no one else can or will. Success is made on the backbone of sacrifice.”

“So, they're what, then?” I ask her. “Just collateral damage?”

“Sunk cost,” she corrects. “Maybe your man on the ground doesn't realize that, but I know for a fact that every last one of mine are ready to lay down their lives to protect Churchill and its people. And I'll thank you to leave the governing of
my
men to me from now on.”

I clench my jaw. It's like trying to get blood from a stone
.

Camus, who has been silent to this point, finally speaks up. His tone is cool and professional. “Perhaps it's time you reassess your leadership qualifications then, if that's how you feel.” And before Meir can say another word, Camus gestures across his throat and Clarence cuts the feed.

“You know there's going to be hell to pay for that,” I tell him, holding back a smile.

“I know.”

“She'll probably just communicate her orders directly to the air team.”

“I've spoken with the pilot already. Contrary to the Commander's belief, he didn't seem keen on letting his friends die. That ‘no man left behind' policy of your American soldiers seems to be alive and well.”

Without Meir to distract us, we're able to turn our attention back to the situation, leaving politics out of it. The air team has their targets in sight, and the extraction team is ready to move in at the first available opportunity. Things seem to finally be going our way again.

“Hey, Rhona?” Rankin says right after I tell him the ETA of rescue. “I don't mean to jinx this, but if things go belly up, you tell my girl I love her, all right?”

“God, Rankin,” I say, closing my eyes. “Jinx is right. Haven't you watched enough movies to know better than to say something like that?”

“I know it.” I think I hear a smile in his voice. “But life isn't always like the movies. Sometimes the bad guys win. I just want Hanna to know I was thinking of her to the last, if it happens.”

I don't want to be having this conversation with him. With anyone, for that matter.

“We'll tell her,” Camus answers for me, and I can feel his hand on my lower back, light and reassuring. He gives me a look I can't decipher, then removes his hand.

Minutes later, sound blasts from the speakers like the last trumpet. Camus grimaces, yanking out his earpiece, which screams with feedback. I cover my ears like everyone else, trying to prevent my eardrums from bursting. The sound comes across only as white noise at first, amplified in volume. It's only as I strain to listen that I begin to pick out words.

“What is that?”
I yell, although it's unlikely anyone hears me against all the racket.

Camus is waving wildly at the technicians.
“Turn it off!”
I think he's saying. But the audio continues to rage, and I can't tell where it originates from. I worry that Rankin and his team are under attack. My eyes search for the live feed of the Churchill ground team.

It's unchanged. They're fine.

Instead, the video of the Prudhoe teams is down, but their audio has miraculously returned. I stare at the black screens while the technicians wrestle with the volume controls. They manage to get it down to tolerable levels in time to hear the chilling combination of panicked voices shouting orders and grinding machinery silencing them one by one.

No,
I think.
No, not grinding.
Whirring.

I grab the table to steady myself, dizzy from the rush of blood to my head, my body's natural reaction to the sounds of death.
We have to do something,
I think frantically, but don't know what, and worse, when I try to speak, nothing comes out. Those are our people out there.
We have to do something…

“We need those visuals,” Camus barks.
“Now!”
One of the technicians starts to babble out an excuse, but Camus's having none of it. “I don't care. Do whatever you have to. Get it back up.”

“Base?”

“Rankin?” I say, readjusting my headset. His voice brings me back to reality, mentally separating me from the commotion.

“We just got a whole lot of something from your end. Everything all right?”

I could tell him about Prudhoe, and what we suspect is going on there. But I don't. He doesn't need bad news on top of everything else. “Yeah, everything…everything's fine,” I lie with some difficulty. My throat hurts, aches with emotion. I still hear the whirring, even as it competes with the haggard voices of McKinley soldiers, fighting and dying up there at the edge of the map, where it sounds like the world's ending a second time. “Just some bad feedback. How are you holding up?”

“Not bad. Found some nice scarves in a box. I was thinking of bringing one home for the missus. You want one?”

“You're joking.”

“Really,” he insists, and I'm having trouble not laughing at the absurdity of it. “It's a brand new shipment, looks like. Probably a Christmas present for the workers or something. Never been opened.”

“No, thanks.”

“Are you sure? They've got a nice red one here with your name on it.” Before I'm given a chance to decline a second time, someone murmurs something to him off camera. “Actually, hold that thought, ma'am. It looks like we've got some visitors. 'Scuse me…”

The sounds of battle replace his country drawl soon after that. This time I don't shrink away from the violent noises, even though a part of me would like to. Another, more primal part wants to be there with Rankin and his team of Churchillians, fighting the good fight alongside them. In fact, anything is preferable to just standing here, useless as a brick. As I begin to wonder whether the air team had any effect on the machines' offense at all, I realize there is something else I can still do.

I get the pilot Camus talked to back on the line.

“What?” he says peevishly. I don't take it personally. I know I must be one more unwelcome distraction at this point.

“Cancel that last order,” I say.

“What?”
the pilot repeats, incredulous.

“Change of plans. We need you to attack the pipeline directly. The only way we're going to draw the machines off the attack is if we give them a higher defense priority. So…blow the pipeline.”

“What are you doing?” Camus barely has time to ask me this, too occupied with our other situation.

I ignore him. “Captain, do you copy? Burn the line.”

After a long period of near silence, the pilot's accelerated breathing gives way to, “Copy that, McKinley. Changing course now.”

While he relays the new orders to his companions in the air, Camus joins me in front of the trembling visuals. “I certainly hope you know what you're doing,” he says doubtfully.

“Yeah,” I answer. I look down at my fingers, noticing the spots of blood around the nails where I've picked too hard at the skin. “You're not the only one.”

Hours later, it's all over.

The hangar is approximately a mile out from McKinley's heart, and we travel through a coronary network of tunnels to reach it. Most of the time, the route is traversed by small vehicles suited to the confined passages, but today we go by foot. I'm glad, mostly because it's something to get the blood flowing, and I've been still for too long. On the downside, it grows noticeably colder the farther we get from the main base, ultimately to the point of discomfort. My breath shows, hanging dense in the air, and my teeth chatter until finally Camus throws his trench coat over my shoulders.

Before long, we're standing beneath a massive dome. From the ground, it resembles frosted glass, but somehow I know it's anything but delicate. Ice has crusted over parts of it, but Clarence informs me his men check it daily for any structural weaknesses. I'm also told it's made out of the toughest material we have available, some industrial strength something or other. I'm not really listening intently at this point. Too many other things on my mind.

I wait at the head of a mass of murmuring people for the mission's survivors. The crowd was supposed to have been kept to a minimum, reserved for family, or in the absence of family, close personal friends of the soldiers, but it feels like half the base has crammed into the loading area to await the returning heroes.

I'd chalk the turnout up to the same morbid curiosity that once kept us tuned in to the TV to watch natural disasters unfolding half a world away, except it feels different. It's like there's this current of support running through the group. A friendly word here or a comforting gesture there keeps spirits up, creating a united front of optimism. I'm proud beyond words of these people, many of whom came to the base as strangers, but years later stand shoulder to shoulder as brothers and sisters, a surrogate family filling in for the ones they've lost.

These people may think they need a leader, some red-headed mascot to cheer them on, but I believe they're stronger than they think. They're survivors, with or without me.

The dome begins to open, accompanied by a great cracking sound, like ice splitting. Soft snow comes loose, fairy dust raining down on our heads.

Camus cools his heels next to me, the image of patience, whereas I am not. I can tell he's just as worried, but to his credit, he does a much better job of hiding it. Nothing gets past his mask, except through his eyes. He's always had expressive eyes.

Hanna stands to my other side, gripping my hand with both of hers. Her lips move in a silent prayer.
Please, please, please.
I wish I could offer her some reassurance, but I don't think hollow promises will help. Rankin coming home safely,
that
will help. And I've done all I can do in that area.

The extraction team from Prudhoe is the first to return, bringing with them empty choppers. Somewhere in the crowd, I hear a woman cry out, then a man begins cursing, before both man and woman are taken into sympathetic arms. Everyone else is silent, struck by disbelief. Death never makes sense.

Next to arrive is the Churchill air team from Fairbanks, around the same time the Prudhoe air team does. For the former, this is only a stopover to refuel, but the pilots are greeted as warmly as if they were McKinlians themselves. Both teams exchange handshakes and slaps on the back, congratulations on a job well done. It's nice to see Meir's venomous ways haven't poisoned the entire well.

Apart from the Prudhoe ground team, no other teams have registered casualties, but that loss is not easily dismissed. From different areas of the hangar, I feel the eyes of the grieving on me. It's a struggle to master my expression, to give nothing of my thoughts away, to show just enough remorse to look sympathetic, but not so much that I look guilty. I'm not guilty of anything. I know I did everything in my power to save the ground team.