 
# Quantum Troopers Return

Episode 3: Forbidden City

### Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

### Copyright 2020 Philip Bosshardt

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### A few words about this series....

Quantum Troopers Return is a series of 25,000-30,000-word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences as a quantum trooper with the United Nations Quantum Corps. This series continues the original serial stories of Quantum Troopers, Episodes 1-22 (formerly Nanotroopers).

Each episode will be about 40-60 pages, approximately 30,000 words in length.

A new episode will be available and uploaded every 4 weeks.

There will be 10 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 12 months.

Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Harmony's efforts to use their nanorobotic ANAD systems for the cartel's own nefarious and illegal purposes.

Uploads will be made to www.smashwords.com on approximately the schedule below:

Episode # (*) Title Approximate Upload Date

1 (23) 'Fab Lords' 2-7-20

2 (24) "Free Fall' 3-6-20

3 (25) "Forbidden City" 4-3-20

4 (26) "Deep Encounter" 5-8-20

5 (27) "HAVOC" 6-12-20

6 (28) "The Empty Quarter" 7-10-20

7 (29) "The Hellas Paradox" 8-14-20

8 (30) "Twist Pirates" 9-11-20

9 (31) "The Better Angels" 10-9-20

10 (32) "The Ship of Theseus" 11-13-20

(Note *: Episode numbers start with Episode 1 in this new series but the continuation of episode numbers from Quantum Troopers is also provided)

Chapter 1: "Defection"

Beijing, China

Below the Forbidden City

March 20, 2064

1730 hours, Earth Universal Time (EUT)

General Liu Xichang had wanted out of Red Harmony for a long time. The AI that ran the cartel—a machine entity known only as Configuration Zero—had determined that Liu no longer added value to the organization and it was true, he had messed up some recent assignments.

Configuration Zero had targeted Liu for extermination. But the problem was that Liu's brain had an embedded halo and he was imprisoned in a containment cell beneath Beijing's Forbidden City, unable to get out.

Fortunately, the last scans they had done before throwing him in the cell hadn't discovered everything. Liu waited until late one night, when the guards were away and lay down on his bunk, partially covering his face with a pillow—the all-seeing eye of the camera couldn't see what he was doing now.

He manipulated a back-molar tooth in his mouth, until the crown came off. Shaking the crown, he dislodged a tiny, fly-sized entomopter into the palm of his hand. He turned over in the bed, pulled up the covers to simulate sleep and with a flick of a thumb, activated the device, itself no larger than one Beijing's trillions of Musca domestica. The quadprops whirred into action and even gave off a convincing buzz. Liu released the thing and it zipped about the cell like so many other flies that flitted in and out of the dingy row of cells.

Never noticed or detected by the camera or any other sensors, the 'mopter homed unerringly on the grate of a ventilation duct and disappeared. Moments later, the device emerged into the stiff wind of a late afternoon Beijing sand storm, a yellow pall of fine dust caking everything, sweeping down out of the desert on northwesterly winds.

Programmed to seek, detect and home on a specific target, the 'mopter circled the Forbidden City for ten minutes, unseen by anyone or anything, passed along a ramp carved with dragons' heads in bas-relief and over the upswept roof of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Sensing the first faint signature of its target, the 'mopter dove down through the pall of dust and set a zigzag course more or less paralleling Ch'ang An Avenue. It traveled several blocks through gusting winds before veering sharply down a dimly lit alley, angling off Hsi Tan and homing on a tiny poorly-lit restaurant called Ch'eng-tu, tucked beneath a red and white striped canopy that flapped vigorously in the breezes.

The 'mopter entered the restaurant through a smokestack overhead and rode through hot updrafts until it emerged into the main dining salon, crammed with red plastic booths. In the far corner, sat a single man of Bengali descent, sucking at a plump dumpling dripping with hot pepper gravy.

The fly that wasn't a fly had now found its programmed target. It buzzed about the Bengali man's head for a moment, dodging perfunctory attempts to swat it away, until it powered down its quadprops and settled right on top of his meal of bean curd cubes.

Sadi Vishnapuram coughed and made a face. "Beast...get out of here!" But as he looked closer, he saw that the beast which had settled onto his ma-la tou-fu wasn't a fly at all. A faint flashing red light winked up at him, saying in effect Press Here.

Vishnapuram pressed the button.

Instantly, a faint 3-d projection emerged from the device. It swelled to the size of a fist and danced across the top of the bean curd. Startled, Vishnapuram whisked the device off his food and dropped it onto the plastic bench, shoving it into the corner of the seat. He looked around and was relieved no one had noticed. Even better, his cartel handler hadn't shown up yet.

Vishnapuram now watched the projection play out. He recognized the man—it was General Liu—an old contact inside the cartel. The Bengali courier had often worked with General Liu. But now—this—the General was speaking and Vishnapuram leaned closer.

"...want out...have to get away...in danger here...they know too much...."

The words were garbled, stuttered quickly, didn't make a lot of sense but Vishnapuram understood that Liu was in trouble with the cartel. The courier had often heard the man talk of his halo and how he had to be careful with what he said. Now, somehow, unaccountably, he wanted out...of the cartel.

Vishnapuram understood perfectly well that such things just didn't happen.

A shadow crossed his face. He looked up. It was his handler.

"Drop something?" she said. She sat down and primped her hair and face for a moment using a small lighted auto-compact. Seconds later, the nanoderm in her face began to respond.

Vishnapuram hadn't seen her before. Or maybe he had. Her appearance kept changing; he was no longer sure who she was. Today, for the moment, she was short, petite, straight black hair tied in a severe bun. Her outfit was impeccable: white skirt, white shoes, black and white blouse and latex gloves.

She glared coldly at Vishnapuram. "You're late."

The Bengali attempted a shrug, but realized it wasn't visible in the shadows. "Couldn't be helped...I had another delivery, right here in Beijing. Near the zoo...San Li Ho Road."

Her real name was Wei Ming, but Vishnapuram didn't know that. Nor did he ask. It was understood that identities weren't important. Only results were important. That much was understood quite well.

Wei Ming pursed her lips, glanced around deeper into the dark of the dining room. It was late and the crowd had thinned. She drew some nearby window shades aside, scanned outside, satisfied, she looked back, partially into the light. Her face was a half moon, pale and unblemished as a ceramic figurine. "Why?"

Vishnapuram watched her, hoping to detect something, some inkling of where he stood with them. Maybe a twitch, a clench of her fist, but there was nothing. "It was a routine delivery, this time. Fully covert. Information, that's all."

"What kind of information?"

"They're forming up some kind of reconswarm, to infiltrate and do all-wavelength scans. EM, infrared, acoustic, mag. Grab stuff right off the computers. They're still looking."

"Mmm." A question or a statement? He wasn't sure.

Vishnapuram found the silences uncomfortable. "They don't have a firm connection yet. Just suspicions."

"That is enough." Wei Ming's face hardened. "What happened at Lion's Rock? You were supposed to have stopped them--"

Vishnapuram knew that was coming. He'd spent hours, trying out different answers, none of them any good. Quietly, resigned, he explained the mission above Kowloon City, what had happened at the Four Winds Clinic, how Johnny Winger--damnable Winger--had managed somehow to grab a Red Harmony mech before they'd been driven out. He tried to put a spin on the story, a certain inevitability, factors beyond my control, I wasn't prepared for\--but she brushed him off and got up, pacing again, this time more abruptly.

When she came back into the light of the small table lamp, her face was no longer a half moon. It had morphed into a hard, impassive mask, a carnival mask, an angry clown. Was it the light...maybe nanoderm patches changing with her mood? He'd heard of the trick--

"This is no good," she told him. The undulations on her cheeks and forehead seemed to settle down, take on a firmness. "If Quantum Corps' got one of our mechs, that's no good at all." She frowned. It was almost a relief to see a normal gesture, something he understood. "With one of our mechs, they'll surely develop countermeasures."

"It will take some time--"

Now she was visibly angry. The skin kneaded itself into a hard fist, making her cheeks bulge slightly like a lioness with fresh kill in her mouth. "They're not stupid, Vishnapuram. Don't make that mistake. You've made enough already." She was thinking, her cheeks returning to normal planes, sleek and alabaster. "You have the package with you? The Project depends on it."

Vishnapuram had heard of The Project before. He wanted to ask, but he decided against it. But he was curious.

"I have it." He had wrapped the 'mopter in a fat noodle in a corner of the bench, smothering the projection, but light leaked out anyway. He didn't know if she'd seen it. "Maybe if I knew more about--"

But Wei Ming wasn't listening. She had new instructions from Red Harmony. "You're being paid well for your services, Sadi. Yet you continue to fail us."

"I can't work miracles."

"Leave the miracles to us. Just do your part." There was an unmistakable menace--had her voice changed timbre? An echo, a frequency shift, multiple tones superimposed. He shook his head. Had Red Harmony mastered that too?

She went on. "You must sabotage any more efforts to develop countermeasures. The Project is vital to us. This is a critical time now."

Vishnapuram's throat constricted. No...it was a normal reflex. He told himself that, reassured himself he still controlled his own throat muscles. "That's not the agreement. I agreed only to provide intelligence, make deliveries, not perform sabotage. It's too dangerous."

Wei Ming was stern. Nanoderm rolled across her face, an earthquake of skin, reflecting her emotions. "Your mission is changed. You'll be paid well for your work...if it is successful. We've always paid well, have we not?"

Vishnapuram nodded glumly.

She reached into a skirt pocket, withdrew a small button-sized disk. She placed it in Vishnapuram's hand. He willed his palm to remain still.

"It's a small bug. This is part of your package. It will make you more convincing to them, subtly, a little at a time. This will make it harder for Quantum Corps to counter us. Install this at the right time--you will be signaled when. And keep sending intelligence back...the usual way."

She vanished from the dining room almost before Vishnapuram realized she was gone, blending into the shadows. He stayed a few minutes more, breathing rhythmically, testing arms, legs, facial muscles. Making sure he still had control of himself. Red Harmony did that to people.

Then he left the restaurant and sped back to the Joyous Pavilion Hotel a few blocks away.

The flight from Beijing Capital Airport to Singapore's Changi Airport took about six hours. He collected his luggage, took a vactrain to the Queensgate Hotel and checked in. Alone in his room, he played the 'mopter vid again, puzzling what exactly to do about it, how to make Liu's plea happen.

Liu was a long-time member of the cartel. Red Harmony didn't exactly fire people when they were to be terminated. Their haloes took care of the messy details. Wei Ming was quite emphatic about what the Project required...and what would happen to him if he didn't do the job. The real question was: would Quantum Corps believe him? He fingered the button Wei Ming had given him, then disgusted with his own timidity, he finally swallowed it.

But first he had to find Quantum Corps' Singapore base, for he knew the city hosted a major command of the UNIFORCE agency.

Vishnapuram stood still for a moment, listening. The sound finally came...a heavy iron door clanging shut behind him. The memory of that sound brought a smile to his pale face. Changi Prison was behind him now. For good. Freedom...it tasted like salty air wafting up from the harbor. Like bougainvillea lining the manicured sidewalks of Tanah Merah Besar Street. Like spicy fish on a grill, from somewhere beyond the concertina wire and steel fencing that surrounded the white stone and pink facing of the prison.

In his memory of that day, Vishnapuram had started walking. He didn't have to look behind to see in his mind's eye the mustard yellow cinder block and blue cell doors he was leaving behind, after five years. He walked straight down the street, heading in the general direction of Queenstown and his goal.

They had released him, four years ahead of his parole date, for a reason. Swallow this, the parole officer had said, giving him a small blue capsule. It was nanoderm and some other things—he knew that much—and it would slightly change his facial appearance, the nanoscale bots morphing his epidermis and skin muscles to more closely resemble someone else. Sign this, they had told him, and pushed some papers he could barely read in front of him. He signed. Be at this location by six p.m. tonight, they had marked a map for him and plotted out a route. He was following that route right now.

Oh, they gave Inmate 287455 a whole new identity...new chip, new cards, new face, new voice.

And for agreeing to all that, he was set free slightly more than halfway through his sentence and given a job to do. A strange job, to be sure, but then when Parole Officer Jurang dangled a pass to the outside world, commuted all charges and slapped some spending money on the table, then ordered him to head for Queenstown, Inmate 287455 was not going to argue.

He had walked and inhaled the luxurious aroma of freedom, hearing ships' horns blaring down by the harbor, the delicious honking of cabs and limos scuttling up and down Bukit Panjang Road, and the bustle and chaos of a city in full, delirious motion.

Presently, he spied the upper towers of his target. It was Queensgate Hotel. He didn't hurry. In fact, he stopped at a roadside vendor and bought an ice cream. It tasted like heaven. He took his time. Why hurry? He didn't have to be at his destination until six p.m.

Inmate 287455 decided to walk a few blocks beyond the hotel, exploring a narrow warren of shops and carts, all jammed together in a seemingly endless bazaar, before finally turning back to the hotel grounds, set in an idyllic paradise of eucalyptus trees and azalea bushes and an amusing topiary of fanciful fairy-tale dragons and elephants and things that had no name.

He had walked in and headed to the Registration desk promptly at six o'clock.

That had all been five years ago. Now Sadi Vishnapuram stood on the balcony of the very same hotel room, spying the funnels of container ships and naval frigates easing past each other along the Bedok South channel. The air was sweet with the cloying scent of tapang trees and the sunset visible over the tops of the trade center and the university and the masts of the sailing ships at the marina looked promising, swathed in the orange and maroon of late afternoon thunderclouds boiling up from the tropics.

He polished off the wine the room service bot had brought up an hour ago and went inside, flopping on the bed for a huge yawn and a stretch. The cartel had given him three days to get the 'package' into the hands of Quantum Corps. He ought to take advantage of their hospitality.

But he couldn't because he was restless.

So, he left Queensgate and went on foot to the front gates of Quantum Corps' Eastern Command base.

He had convinced himself that the best approach was the most direct one.

Singapore Base was a miniature replica of Mesa de Oro itself, complete down to the Containment Facility, the Sim and Wargaming center, the Ops quadrangle and the lifter pads. Only the Mayan ruins of Kokul-Gol were missing, replaced with palm trees and mangrove stumps and the strong smell of salt air. The languid tropical waters of the Selatar River slapped wooden piers near the lift pads as the lights came on inside Base Ops. In the eastern sky, orange fingers of dawn sunlight probed puffy cumulus clouds.

At the front gate, Vishnapuram was immediately challenged by Security, in the form of three well-built guards.

"ID, please. This is a secure area."

Instead of allowing his face to be scanned, Vishnapuram extracted the now-dried noodle from the Beijing restaurant and opened it up in the palm of his hand.

"I think your superiors will want to see this." To make his point, he thumbed the device into action. The ghostly projection of General Liu materialized in his hand and the guards jumped back, startled.

"What the hell is this?"

Vishnapuram smiled faintly. "It's an offer."

"Hey, Riley...get on the horn. Lieutenant should see this. Sir, keep your hands where we can see 'em." Two guards aimed their mag side arms at his head, cocked and ready. "Just be still, sir, and stand right there."

And that's how Sadi Vishnapuram got inside Quantum Corps' Singapore base.

They took him to Interrogation and sat him down at a bare table. A lieutenant came in, asked a few questions, viewed the 'mopter's vid and then took the thing from Vishnapuram's hand. They gave him some water and crackers.

After half an hour, he was taken under escort into an office, much better furnished than Interrogation.

"I'm Major Lofton." The speaker was vaguely Anglo, all bristly buzzcut and wire-rim data specs, which scrolled reams of text and flashed red and green around the edges even as he spoke. It was clear the Major was analyzing all kinds of feed about his guest. "You're Sadi Vishnapuram...at least that's what it says here."

"Yes, sir. I thought you should see this."

Vishnapuram figured the truth was best. He described his courier and contract duties with Red Harmony, and emphasized that he had, in fact, many customers, not just the cartel. Not entirely true, but close enough.

Lofton squinted at the vid projection as it played out. "Exactly how well do you know this General Liu. He really wants to defect, to get out?"

Vishnapuram said, "It does seem that way, sir. I have known the General for several years. He often gives me work."

"And he sent this little bug to you?"

"I received it at a restaurant in Beijing." Vishnapuram watched the lights flashing on Lofton's specs, no doubt analyzing his words, his voice patterns, facial musculature, galvanic skin response, all to verify what he was saying. Wei Ming had warned him about this.

Lofton then answered a question he had never really asked. "I suppose he trusts you...to get this out."

"Trust is very important in my business."

That brought a rueful smile to Lofton's angular face. "No doubt. What exactly am I supposed to do with this information?"

Vishnapuram's lips tightened, for he was sure that this was at the heart of the Project. "Help General Liu to escape, I suppose."

Lofton regarded him coldly. "You do look hungry and a little pale, Mr. Vishnapuram. Let me have one of my men take you to the commissary. They'll fix you up."

At some unseen signal, a sergeant appeared at the door and Lofton ordered that their visitor be allowed to sample the culinary delights of the base commissary. After he was gone, Lofton took the 'mopter and the analysis his specs had collected to the base commander.

"This joker checks out, Major?"

The question was posed by CINCQUANT himself in the form of one General Harriman Lu, commander in chief of Quantum Corps. Lu was part of an invasion of brass that had taken over the Q2 intel shop at Singapore the next morning, having vactrained in from a number of faraway places. Not to be outdone, UNSAC herself was also present, at least in avatar form, drifting about the room like a disembodied spirit.

Lofton answered in the affirmative. "Yes, sir, he does. We've scanned him from head to toe, multiple ways and found nothing of consequence. He does have some anomalous electrical activity in his head but it's not a halo, at least not the normal Red Harmony halo. Plus, he was sporting a variety of spybots on his person—in his hair, his pants leg and so forth—but we swept all that off."

Lu glared at the graphs of scan results. "So, he's clean. You believe his story?"

Lofton shrugged. "In the intel business, we assume the worst until we can prove otherwise. It's just possible he's telling the truth...that this General Liu wants to defect."

The Security Affairs Commissioner—UNSAC—was Evelyn Lumumba, a tall, regal Cameroonian woman of striking beauty, with bone and ivory necklaces and black cornrows. "Gentlemen, what do we know about this General Liu?"

Lofton pulled up some photos and background. "Long time member of Red Harmony. Got into the cartel from his Peoples' Liberation Army contacts. In the PLA, he was a cyberwar specialist, Unit 4487 out of Shanghai. Inside the cartel, we're not sure of his role. Likely, from his background, something cyber, maybe nano too. I've put together a little bio from what we've been able to dig up..." Lofton ran the piece off the 3-d pedestal and did the voice narration.

Everyone watched with rapt attention....

Liu Xichang had worked at the Red Harmony compound on Kurabantu Island for nearly a year. His job was simple enough, relatively straightforward: to release, monitor and control small swarms of Amazon Vector nanobots into the air over the island. It was all part of the Project, always the Project, and Liu had been diligent and reliable for the most of the year he had been there. Nobody could say otherwise.

Today was different. Liu had been having second thoughts about the Project, about being part of Red Harmony, even being assigned to this lush tropical island, for quite some time. He kept his doubts to himself. Hongse Hexie, or Red Harmony as it was more often known around the back alleys of East Asia, was notorious for secrecy and security. You opened your mouth at your own risk. Liu wasn't afraid of dying; on the contrary, he was afraid of living, living a single day longer in the belly of the beast that the Project had become.

The truth was that Liu had been planning to defect for some time now. Just when the idea had formed in his mind, he wasn't sure. You had to be careful when you had a halo, for even subversive thoughts could get you in trouble. He had worked out the rudiments of a plan to defect and contact UNIFORCE, to let them know what was going on deep within the bowels of a small island in the Marquesas chain of the south Pacific.

Why? Revenge, perhaps. Souvranamh and the Ruling Council wouldn't allow him to transfer out, wouldn't allow him up to the City, where the real work was done, and where some of his questions could be answered. Conscience. Bad dreams, though that could have been the halo at work, snooping along trails of glutamate molecules inside his brain, hunting down thoughts and memories that shouldn't have been there. Maybe a little fear too.

Unfortunately, Liu had been prevented from pursuing any ideas about escape by the presence of Red Harmony's halo...it was something every member of the organization hosted. An embedded nanobotic control system infesting his mind and body, a hammer that would keep him from disrupting the Project or performing acts disloyal to Red Harmony.

Everyone had a halo. It was a personal shield that went wherever you did. Made sure you did what you were supposed to do, that nothing and no one could interfere. Another member he had met once, an American Indian named Windsinger, had put it this way: "I think and my halo acts. Like the great spirit of the mountains, always watching over me. My shadow, my armor...even my soul."

It was the price of membership in Red Harmony.

But Liu had discovered a fatal weakness in the halo and the time had come to take advantage of it.

Earlier that night, after the sun had gone down, he had slipped out of the residential quarter tucked into the foothills of the island's great volcano Tuontavik, and made his way through steep forested ravines and narrow dirt paths to a headland of rocky cliffs overlooking an isolated beach on the northwest flanks of the island. With him, he carried a small pod, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. It was a portable containment cylinder, filled with nanobotic organisms, well secured inside the cylinder.

Liu was, of course, well aware of the existence of UNIFORCE's BioShield nanobots circulating in the lower troposphere of the Earth's atmosphere. He knew as well that BioShield was especially sensitive to the presence of Serengeti Factor 'bots, as the global pandemic of some years ago had brought the protective swarm into being. Knowing that, it was a small matter of concocting a batch of the mechs inside the lab, not enough to warrant concern but sufficient to trigger a reaction from BioShield and bring unwanted attention to what was going on at Kurabantu Island.

He had worked out the plan in scraps and pieces, so far successfully compartmentalizing the details enough to avoid intervention from the halo. There had been probes and jabs, to be sure, often coming late at night when he was trying to sleep—he could feel them—but so far, nothing serious had happened. The halo, if it had detected anything, hadn't found a pattern to interpret.

Liu prided himself on knowing how the blasted thing worked, knowing how the 'bots sniffed out residual trails of glutamate molecules, the freight carriers of memory, and constructed crude renditions of memory traces inside a brain, even up to fifteen days after the trail had been laid down. He knew the halo 'bots were designed to shuttle around inside your head like a bunch of bees, sniffing out calcium sinks in every neuron, looking for equal concentrations, down to the parts per trillion. He knew that everywhere the concentrations were equal was a pathway, burned in, a sort of memory trace, like an echo. The 'bots looked for that, sent back data on whatever they found—calcium levels, sodium levels, activation times, lots of data. In the master 'bot's processor, all that data could be re-constructed into a very crude version of what had originally laid down the trail.

He knew all that, but knowing it and defeating it were different things. Still, he had to try.

Only a year and a half had passed since Liu had been sponsored into Red Harmony membership and allowed himself to be halo'ed. He'd come out of the Peoples Liberation Army, signed on with Red Harmony, South Asia division, only in the fall of '56, sponsored by none other than Souvranamh himself, the neurotraficante of the Ruling Council. He'd been put to work on something known only as the Project; with talents in environmental engineering, nanoswarm control algorithms and meteorological engineering, Liu figured he'd be a worthy addition to the effort.

Assigned duties at Kurabantu station, Liu plunged into the details of his work: generating and maintaining nanobotic master assemblers, improving their capabilities, initiating and maintaining swarm dispersion for atmosphere modification. He had no other life anyway. He was rootless Chinese, like so many of his ancestors had been in the glory days of the Middle Kingdom. Born in Wuhan (ca. 2033). Something of a child prodigy in school. Honors and letters from Tsinghua University in Chemistry and Environmental Sciences.

He had lived in China most of his life. Both parents had died in a lifter crash in 2050. For the last ten years, he had lived in a Guangzhou high-rise, worked for the Interior Ministry in freshwater remediation, met engineering and nanobotic pollution abatement, later even cyber warfare scenarios.

He'd joined BioShield in 2056 after the Serengeti plague, worked on swarm communications and controls, and had been released in '59 on suspicion of embezzlement and misuse of agency resources (even now, Liu could hear his own voice rising in anger at the hearing: "this charge of unauthorized tampering with core ANAD BioShield algorithms without approval is patently ridiculous...nothing but a witch hunt—")

But he was out on the street, nonetheless, and he thirsted for a way to embarrass BioShield and get back at the pinheads who had thrown him out on some kind of technicality. That was when Liu learned through the Guangzhou underground of something called Hongse Hexie.

His highest-level contact inside Red Harmony had always been Souvranamh's deputy Kawati Chandrigarh, a musician turned gene designer whom Liu had taken an instant liking to. One day, curious and frustrated by the lack of detail about his job, Liu had asked Chandrigarh about the Project.

Chandrigarh had thick, bushy eyebrows that framed a cat's face. He explained the Project was an effort to discredit UNIFORCE and the Quantum Corps by making BioShield ineffective, so UNIFORCE would have to use Red Harmony designs under license.

Liu had done his job well enough. By the end of the year, though, he had become increasingly uneasy at the planned extent and depth of atmosphere modification being undertaken. He related his concerns to Chandrigarh, his discomfort with the extent of the modifications, wondering if "we really need to go this far."

Chandrigarh told him not to worry.

Later, Liu had an attack of conscience and tried to weaken the control links and blunt some of the worst effects of the Amazon Vector swarms.

That's when his halo went off.

It was his first experience with Red Harmony discipline and it wasn't pleasant. Liu began to suspect he had made a mistake joining Hongse Hexie, suspecting he had gotten into something he couldn't get out of.

He was a competent enough nanobotic engineer, though, so he decided he ought to be able to figure out how to 'dial back' the worst effects of Amazon Vector. The Project wasn't what he thought it was...somehow it had gone beyond teaching UNIFORCE a lesson and had entered new territory...now people were dying, lots of them, and whole swaths of the planet's atmosphere were becoming toxic and uninhabitable. Serious, perhaps irreparable damage was being done to the Earth's atmosphere.

Chandrigarh chided him for being so naïve. "Don't be so dense...that's the whole point of it," the Indian scientist had said. That's when Liu first learned of rumors concerning the leader of Red Harmony, Configuration Zero. Not even human, they said. A machine. A spirit. Something halfway in between. At first, Liu didn't put a lot of stock in the tales.

With conditions worsening and a global crisis brewing, Liu tried several times to modify and weaken the Amazon Vector swarms, but his halo wouldn't let him. To join Red Harmony, he had given up free will and control of his mind. By early '61, he knew he was effectively a prisoner.

Out of desperation, he began looking for a way out, a way to escape. Completely opposite to his original disgust with BioShield, now he wanted out of Red Harmony and somehow, he had to let UNIFORCE know what was going on. Revenge was no longer so important. With the halo, it was more a matter of survival.

But first he had to find a way to beat the halo. That was when Configuration Zero had had him taken into custody and targeted him for termination....

After viewing Lofton's little background vid, CINCQUANT was the first to speak.

"If this is even remotely accurate, and not some feverish dream in Major Lofton's head, we have a chance here to get our hands on a priceless asset. No doubt this Liu character has invaluable inside information about the cartel."

Lofton was pleased at the reception his little production had received. He agreed. "If Vishnapuram's little bug is right, Liu's being held somewhere in Beijing. Q2 has long believed the Forbidden City has some kind of complex below ground that's either a key node in the cartel network or its operational headquarters. After we destroyed their Paryang Monastery complex in Tibet—"

"They hightailed it back to Mama Bear with their tails tucked," CINCQUANT finished the thought. "What better place to run operations from than the bowels of the Forbidden City."

UNSAC's avatar made a face, which pixelated slightly. "What are you suggesting, General?"

"Madame Commissioner, I'm suggesting we take Liu's request seriously. Form up a mission and a special team to penetrate the Forbidden City compound and spring Liu from the cartel. He'd be a gold mine of intelligence."

CINCQUANT was already warming to the idea. "I like it. It's risky to be sure but it's right up Quantum Corps' alley. Kincade, what do you think?"

Winston Kincade was commanding officer of the Corps' Western Command base at Mesa de Oro, in Mexico. "First Nano could make it work, General. We'd have to do some serious mission planning and prep. Maybe a subterranean assault from below ground. Work with Boundary Patrol on that."

Lofton pointed out, "We know Red Harmony has geoplanes as well."

UNSAC's avatar brightened. "There's something else to consider, gentlemen. It's just possible this whole thing is a charade. Liu, and this Vishnapuram guy, could be plants, to lure us into a trap."

Lofton was thoughtful. "Very possible, Madame Commissioner. We're pretty sure Liu has an embedded halo in his head. He could still be under complete cartel control. We can't be a hundred percent certain that isn't some kind of honeypot, a trap to ferret out Quantum Corps tactics and equipment, like our geoplanes. But Q2's official position is that such mission as you're proposing could be worth the risk."

The briefing continued for awhile, including the prospect of forming up a dual mission to spring Liu. One mission to be formed up to penetrate the Forbidden City from below ground. Another mission to penetrate the complex a different way. The pros and cons were vigorously debated for half an hour.

CINCQUANT explained. "A hundred and twenty years ago, the Allied Powers used General George Patton this way. World War II, gentlemen. Patton was given command of a bogus army, with fake bases, fake training runs, fake radio traffic, all to lure the Germans into thinking the invasion of Europe was going to come at some other place than Normandy. And it basically worked. We can do that too. A dual-track mission, where we let slip something's up and make it possible for Red Harmony to detect this. We train for this mission, real men and equipment, real tactical scenarios, real resources. But we also form a separate mission to secure the target a completely different way. Feed details of the first mission to Red Harmony and let them prepare for that. Then we slip our people in the back door and grab Liu while the cartel's looking the other way. Maskirovka, gentlemen. The art of deception."

UNSAC liked the strategy. "My Igbo ancestors used to say, 'A grasshopper that runs into the midst of fowls winds up in the land of spirits.' General Lu, you and Kincade write up a mission plan. Get it to me by 0800 hours tomorrow and I'll take it to the Secretary-General. With any luck, the old coot will give us a 'go' before noon. General Lu—"

CINCQUNT replied, "Yes, Madame Commissioner?"

"Start work immediately. My authority. A real mission and a bogus mission. I like the strategy. Maybe we can beat Red Harmony at their own game and grab one of their key people right out from under them."

With that, the briefing was adjourned. Sixteen thousand kilometers away, General Winston Kincade killed off his avatar and sank back in his desk chair at the Mesa de Oro base, deep in thought.

Why the hell not? With an angel like Colonel Johnny Winger in charge of 1st Nano, the possibilities were endless. Kincade smiled at the prospect. For sleazebags like Red Harmony, it would be like trying to cold-cock a cloud of smoke. Smiling, he decided to ring up the battalion ready room and get Winger over to Ops right away. They had a lot to discuss before a mission plan—make that two mission plans—could be written.

The cantina at Merida was loud, boisterous and filled with smoke. When Johnny Winger and Al Glance entered The Lucky Peso deep in the Tenderloin district and ordered a round of cold ones from the auto-bar, they were also deep in discussion about how Quantum Corps would respond to recent mishaps in the field. Sure, Red Harmony had been driven off, for the time being, but at what cost?

Angel Barnes and Sherm Cuddy were there, too, along with Robbie Acuna. Only Joe Vinh remained back at the Mesa, still running down stubborn glitches in 1st Nano's newest HERF guns.

Winger was buying.

Glance slurped some frost around the top of his mug. Winger pressed a thumb into the servbot's head slot to pay off the round.

"You were lucky, Colonel," Glance announced. "Nobody's ever done that before...gone below the Moon's surface. What was it like?"

Winger closed his eyes, sipping at his own drink, twirling the little parasol between his fingers. "Like being swept up in a sandstorm inside a barrel. You can't see anything. You're getting bounced and battered around—"

He added, "Joe and I were both pretty much knocked out. I opened my eyes once and nearly vomited. It was like watching a million vids at super high speed...none of your senses can make anything out of what's happening."

"And you still wound up making it to that Indian hopper...what are the odds of that?"

"Joe Vinh and the Skipper were lucky to get out of Yuegong intact," Barnes corrected them.

"Yeah," Winger said, watching the door as another atomgrabber crew came in, arguing and laughing out loud. "Where we wound up, I thought I had died and been scattered like lunar dust. Whole place was a wasteland."

"Me, too," Glance admitted. "Never thought of Copernicus City as paradise until after I went barrel-rolling across Farside."

The talk stopped when a third atomgrabber platoon swaggered into the Peso, most of them hammered into slobbering, stumbling semi-comatose jellybags. The din briefly subsided across the room as platoons encountered each other along the edge of the bar. Then a trooper from the 2nd Nano saw Winger and Glance and blinked his watery eyes in disbelief.

"Well, I'll be a Mexican rattler...that's looks like a bunch of pukes from 1st Nano over there. Hey, Velho, check out that bunch of atomheads..." he spat a wad of something blue, probably chewed khat...the leaf was everywhere in the Tenderloin, "can't say I ever laid eyes on a sorrier bunch of quantum troopers than them—"

Glance stiffened and was about to rise to face this troglodyte, but Winger laid a firm hand on his elbow.

"Not now, Sergeant. Take it easy. Skunks are just blowing off steam."

"But, Colonel, I—"

"Save it for a better time. They're not the enemy. We're all on the same team here."

Winger had hoped the 2nd and 3rd Nano troopers would cancel each other out, focus on boasting and cursing and insulting each other and leave the rest of them alone. But when a 3rd Nano crewman sauntered over, sloshing his drink on half the patrons as he came up, Winger knew that was a forlorn hope.

The quantum trooper from 3rd was short, but stocky, a bull of a man with a thick ropy neck and slurred, heavily accented words. His jump suit had a name patch that read something like Kizim somethingorother. He was grinning like a skeleton's rictus and his bald head shone from the overhead lights.

"First...Nano, eh?" he got out thickly. His drink sloshed on Glance's shoulder. The commander bit his lip, sucked in a breath and tried to ignore the intruder. "Heard you're being re-assigned."

"Oh," muttered Cuddy, over the top of his mug. "How's that?"

Kizim laughed and drooled at the same time. "You din't hear...Corps reassigned your old platoon to escort duty...other side of the Mesa. Escorting other atomheads around the stockade."

"Oh," said Glance, his shoulders tightening for what he knew was bound to come. "Where'd you hear that piece of crap?"

Kizim's face scrunched up into a mixture of pain and laughter. "Ever'body knows it. First Nano ain't nothin' but a bucket of molecules flying around in loose formation. Couldn't even aim that HERF thing right in their last quals, blew off half of the Mesa, I heard. Go see for yourself, Goldilocks."

Glance stood up abruptly, knocking over his half-empty mug. "And I suppose 3rd Nano's the marvel of the universe...you know, pal—" Glance leaned close to Kizim's face, right into a miasma of khat breath and bleary eyes—"...you know what they say about 3rd Nano?"

"Eh? No...what's that?"

Glance chuckled a low guttural chuckle. "I hear that her old c/o's nothing but the bastard offspring of an infernal liaison...two diseased zombies came out of the jungle, both covered with canker sores, got to humping it and spat out a smoking pile of crap with a vague resemblance to a human. Corps was so impressed, they stuck a name on it and commissioned it into the Corps...Third Nano...three strikes and you're out, get it, stinko?"

Kizim blinked hard. The swing, when it came was off the mark but managed to clip Glance on the ear. And then, like the proverbial butterfly who flapped its wings and created a hurricane, the brawl was on.

Winger never really knew who threw the first punch. But before he could even get to his feet, the entire front bar of the Lucky Peso was a maelstrom of flying fists and falling bodies and chairs crashing and tables collapsing and bots beeping and glass shattering and beer everywhere.

Kizim and Glance were in a wrestling match in no time, first on top of the table, then on the floor, rolling in khat leaf and butts and ashes and slick patches of drink spill. Glance was taller and rangier, but Kizim was stronger, a bull fighting a giraffe, Angel Barnes would later describe it.

Glance landed a few solid punches, but Kizim seemed impervious to everything and just butted like a bull, again and again, right into the commander's chest, knocking the wind out of him every time.

Sherm Cuddy rose to come to his crewmate's defense but soon found himself enveloped in the arms of another atomgrabber, trying to strangle him from behind. Barnes landed a side kick right in the privates of a third grabber and Robbie Acuna was soon crouched himself on top of nearby table, hands in strike position, slashing and chopping at anyone who came near.

Winger took a few shoves from hands unseen—they never connected but buried themselves into his angel's swarm body-- shoved back and burrowed his way to the bar, where he hand-motioned the auto-bar for another round of Lick and slurped it carefully, even sitting up on the bar, lifting his legs, when more bodies came crashing by. He thought for a moment about going small, and stinging these bozos with a few bond disrupters as an angel but thought better of it. That sort of behavior was best reserved for official missions.

Moments later, the Q Cops showed up. It took Quantum Corps police half an hour to get everything calmed down.

Most of the crew spent a blurry, dreary night in lockup at Mesa de Oro, and after all the investigations and interviews and fines and warnings, the atomgrabbers of 1st Nano were released to the custody of Winger, himself on probation, and they left the adjutant's quarters on base by the sight of a blood-red dawnlight from the sun, just coming up and filtering through the haze of distant clouds out in the Gulf beyond.

General Winston Kincade, the base commander at the Mesa, on whose recognizance they had all been released, made sure to give his sternest lecture to his wayward troopers as they left the adjutant office, all of them wearing wrist monitors to make sure they didn't succumb to temptation again until the case could be adjudicated.

"Nobody leaves the Mesa without written permission," Kincade was saying in his sing-song lilt. "And be at Eternal Patrol Gardens at 0900 hours this morning."

Glance's head still hurt and his chest was black and blue from a cascade of head butts. "Sir, Eternal Patrol...couldn't we just—"

"No, you cannot go back to your quarters and sleep this off. There's a memorial ceremony, an official Time of Remembrance at Kraft Field this morning. We honor those lost in the Battle of Copernicus City. Go back and get cleaned up. Full dress blues and blacks, too."

With that, Kincade wheeled about and strolled down a pebbled walkway to the Ops Center, a glass cube two blocks away. He chose not to acknowledge the grumbles and curses that issued from behind him, though Winger knew the Battalion C/O could surely hear a leaf drop from ten kilometers with those super-sensitive audio receivers he liked to call ears.

The crew stumbled in morose silence back to their quarters, Barnes, Cuddy and Acuna to C Barracks, Winger and Glance to Officers Quarters at Novotny Hall.

The biggest challenge was going to be climbing into their dress uniforms without falling asleep, standing up. Maybe swallowing a few stims would help.

Kraft Field was the Corps' parade and review grounds, on the perimeter of the Mesa, but with a clear view of Big Mouth, as the towering pyramids of the Kokul-Gol archeological dig was affectionately called. Beyond the dig, the dense green tuft of la selva, the tropical rain forest, fifty kilometers in all directions, made a perfect backdrop for all the ceremonies that were regularly held there. Alongside the Field, the Garden of Eternal Patrol was situated, with its neatly ordered rows of columbariums and crypts, lined with statuary and sculptures of quantum troopers past, all arranged in the shape of a great spiral when seen from the air, for the spiral was the logo of Quantum Corps itself.

The troopers of 1st Nano, decked out in their dress blues and blacks, with red and gold piping and bandolier straps, stood at attention along with the men and women of a dozen other platoons who were there as well, but no one exchanged any glances, though heads were pounding and fists were bruised and faces were bandaged from the night before.

After all the internments and eulogies and a few mournful dirges by the Quantum Corps Honor Guard, the assembled ranks were directed out of the Gardens over to Kraft Field itself.

Winger's eyes opened when a small lifter landed on the field and the Secretary-General herself, one Dr. Anika Steen-Dellarosa, stepped out, clad in a severe blue outfit with a small cap, accompanied by no less than General Kincade himself, attired in full dress regalia.

A low murmur rippled through the ranks, until the top sergeant's stern face turned and quieted all the hubbub with a fierce glance.

An award ceremony had been arranged for the crew of 1st Nano at Kraft Field, right across the mesa from the lifter pads. The Secretary-General and Kincade had arrived with a stern, no-nonsense escort, along with a small platoon of security officials and aides.

The troops of the battalion were dressed out in full parade uniform, bright red piping on spotless dress grays, arrayed in perfect ranks along the manicured lawn of the grounds. Al Glance squirmed in his tight jacket, earning a hiss from Angel Barnes, who was right behind him.

"Quit wiggling, Sarge...you're making the whole platoon nervous."

"I can't help it," Glance mouthed back. "This damn jacket's too tight...I can't breathe."

"ORDER IN THE RANKS!" the top sergeant barked out loud. "PRESENT...H'ARMS!"

The battalion snapped to full attention and stood at arms while the S-G and Kincade reviewed the formation. A brassy trumpet fanfare filled the parade grounds from the Honor Guard Band. The Secretary-General was a tall, regal woman, stern of eye with a prominent aquiline nose. Kincade moved in perfect unison right alongside her, a lean and athletic man himself whose lithe stride belied his fifty years of age and experience.

The formal ceremony seemed to Johnny Winger to last forever. The battalion itself received a unit citation from the Secretary-General. Kincade himself proudly marched forward to receive the Quantum Corps Special Order of Gaia, 1st Rank, signifying, as the inscription on the pennant read, "extraordinary valor and courage defending the free peoples of the Earth."

Small is all, Winger muttered to himself. Get on with the show. I'm dying out here.

Individual citations were next. Winger and Glance were singled out for Gold Hearts. They marched forward in unison, saluted smartly, and received the medals from the S-G, then about-faced and regained their positions in the ranks.

The final ceremony came from Kincade, who called Joseph Vinh out by name again, and after the DPS2 had marched up, touched the trooper with a jeweled scepter on each shoulder.

"For uncompromising integrity and unflinching selfless duty in the service of his fellow troopers—" Kincade announced. He removed a small medallion from a leather box and pinned the stallion and crown of the Quantum Corps Blue Legion of Victory on Vinh's chest, probing for a firm spot on the angel's uniform. Vinh then saluted back and shook hands with the commanding officer.

"Bravo!—" someone called out. "Hurrah!" The words were repeated several times, then swelled into a chorus of cheers. The ranks broke into applause and Joe Vinh gave a sly smile as he regained his position.

Another trumpet fanfare followed, then a parade of endless speeches. To occupy his mind, Winger kept a loose count of the number of times the word valor was used. He lost track at one hundred and four.

It was finally over at 1100 hours. Kincade, with permission from the S-G, passed an order to his troops to stand at ease and officially mingle with the high and mighty.

Two hours later, after the award ceremony and the Secretary-General's reception at the Ops Center, 1st Nano was formally stood down and released. Most of the atomgrabbers headed for the O Club, or off base to gaudier amusements.

Kincade drew Winger aside as the ranks were falling out.

"New orders from UNSAC, Colonel. There's a briefing at 1400 hours, Ops Center top level. Go grab some chow now and then be there with your senior people. By the way, bring your crypto pins too...this one's Level 1, eyes and ears only." Kincade didn't stick around to entertain any further thoughts, questions or complaints, but trundled off to yet another reception for the S-G at Schrodinger House on the other side of the base.

Winger swallowed hard, feeling a pinch of loose bots on the back of his head from last night and wisely refrained from planting a fist right into that sun-burned smirk of a face.

No rest for the weary, he told himself. And no liberty for heroes. He went off to find the rest of the platoon and tell them the good news.

"There will be two missions," Kincade growled. In his office sat Johnny Winger and Al Glance, both still bleary-eyed from the adventures of the previous night at the Lucky Peso. A fourth person, a female, sat opposite Kincade. She wore the deep blue of UN Boundary Patrol. Her name was Commander Julia Swire, a big-boned redhead with athletic arms and legs.

Kincade briefly introduced Swire, then went on. "The first mission is called Operation Seismic Snatch. It's a diversionary mission. That's why Commander Swire is here. With the Commander's help, we're going to try to make the Chinese and Red Harmony think we're coming for General Liu from below ground."

"A diversion, sir?" Winger asked.

Kincade nodded to Swire, who took up the briefing. A portion of a globe materialized in mid-air, centered on East Asia. Three dots crawled across the globe, or rather inside the globe. Swire explained.

"Boundary Patrol's furnishing three geoplanes. The diversionary operation involves these vehicles approaching the Forbidden City compound in the center of Beijing from three different headings. The planes will set off small-scale tremors and generally maneuver as if they are making a combat approach to the Forbidden City."

Al Glance was puzzled. "But, sir, don't the Chinese and the cartel have their own geoplanes? We encountered that on the Moon a few months ago."

"They do, Sergeant and we're counting on them responding. If we can create some confusion and make the cartel and their Chinese overlords think we're coming for Liu this way, it should mask our real tactics. That part is called Operation Shadow Warrior."

The very name intrigued Winger. "General, didn't Q2 say the General's being held below ground?"

"That's what Lofton said," Kincade admitted. He highlighted and brightened a large dot on the globe...Beijing...and zoomed in for a closer satview. "Intel indicates the cartel is operating a large base compound somewhere below the Forbidden City. From what that Indian smuggler provided and our own sources, we believe Liu's being held there."

"How does Shadow Warrior fit into this?"

Kincade massaged his moustache, which sometimes twitched with a mind of its own. "Shadow Warrior also involves some deception tactics, Colonel. To bring this operation off and snatch Liu from the cartel before he can be eliminated, I want you to look at your roster in 1st Nano and form up a single small detachment of five troopers. Call it Detachment Alpha. You and your selectees will undergo some, shall we say, changes to make you resemble an official Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army delegation visiting Jakarta, Indonesia. Colonel, you yourself will be provided new configurations to resemble the commanding officer of this unit, all of whom come from the Peoples Molecular Forces and all of whom are visiting their Indonesian counterparts. Your name will be Colonel Guang Zhou Li and your 'orders' are to assess the current state of Indonesian molecular forces—their version of Quantum Corps—and provide some assistance, then report back to your superiors in Beijing." Here, Kincade leaned forward for emphasis. "You, as an angel, will be able to make this physical change with no problem. The Chinese have angels in their command ranks as well. The rest of your Detachment will undergo nanoderm treatments here at the Mesa to create as close a physical resemblance to your counterparts as possible."

Winger looked over at Glance, who nodded. It was clear from their looks that Winger fully expected Glance to be part of this Detachment. "Our counterparts...they're real people? How will we be replacing them?"

Kincade smiled a mischievous smile. "The less you know about that, the better. Let's just say we have assets in Jakarta who can make the real officers disappear for awhile, along with some help from our Indonesian friends. Maybe something in the food—" Kincade's eyes twinkled.

"General, let me get this straight. We are taking the place of a delegation of visiting Chinese Peoples Molecular Forces in Jakarta? And we return to Beijing as this delegation?"

"On a commercial airliner chartered by the PLA. You'll be landing at Beijing Capital Airport. A staff car will be waiting to take you to Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound just west of the Forbidden City. You'll be housed overnight at a small cottage reserved for this occasion. Near a place called the Water Clouds Pavilion. By the way, that same evening, you'll be attending a reception with members of the State Council and the Central Military Commission. The brass wants to press the flesh...your flesh, as it were, Colonel. The next morning, you'll be giving a keynote speech to assembled members of the Council and the PLA General Staff."

Kincade enjoyed the look of consternation on Winger's face. "Didn't realize you had signed up for some official schmoozing, did you, Colonel?"

Winger was glum. "No, sir. I wouldn't even know what to say. Nor do I speak Chinese, much."

Kincade waved that off. "Not to worry, son. We've worked out with the Lab a way to bifurcate your configuration. After you've arrived at your residence, you be able to split your 'body' as an angel--bifurcate is what the eggheads are calling it—and proceed on two tracks of operations. On one track—call it Beta Unit—you'll still be Major General Guang Zhou Li. You'll go to the reception and to the briefing the next day. Your presentation's already been pre-recorded. All Beta Unit has to do is look like Guang and play the files. Your Alpha Unit—essentially you and your main processor, however, will proceed on a separate track. The purpose of this dual identity is to maintain the deception for as long as possible and force the enemy's attention to our diversionary op, Seismic Snatch."

"And what does Alpha Unit do, sir?"

"From the time you and your team arrive at Water Clouds Pavilion, until the time of the reception scheduled for 2100 hours that night, you will have approximately ten hours of more or less free time, ostensibly to rest." Now Kincade shifted the 3-d display to show a sat view of central Beijing. Hypothetical underground structures were shown in red.

"Q2 believes General Liu is being held in some kind of cell below the Forbidden City. As a flag officer in the Peoples Molecular Forces, you have orders to enter the cartel's facility, locate Liu and order him released to your custody. The cover story is that the PMF needs his expertise at their own lab north of Beijing, for a critical test."

"And after he is released, assuming he is released, what then, sir?"

Now Kincade was warming to the subject. "You and your team will proceed on foot, from the cartel holding area, to the surface and then back into Zhongnanhai. You will proceed to the north end of the compound, enter Pei Hai Park across a bridge and find a small lifter pad there. Upon arrival, you will provide a signal using a device the Lab will give you and a lifter will set down. The lifter crew are our assets in Beijing, although they don't know all the details of your mission."

"And the lifter takes us out of Beijing?"

"About half an hour north by air. To the Ming Tombs. That's where the PMF lab is located. We have to keep up appearances as long as possible. Remember, while all this is going on, Commander Swire here will be creating havoc below Beijing with small-scale tremors triggered by her geoplanes."

Swire smiled sweetly at them. "It will be a pleasure, sir. Boundary Patrol knows how make the earth shake, rattle and roll."

Now Kincade turned deadly serious. "From the lifter, you and your team, with General Liu in your custody, will enter the Changling Tomb. Your PMF credentials should enable you to enter. Once inside, you will follow the normal tourist route until you come to a small side tunnel, called Hongxie. Colonel, don't worry...you'll have specific step-by-step directions uploaded into your processor before you leave here. Down this tunnel is an abandoned archeological dig site. Just beyond will be one of Commander Swire's geoplanes, sitting in a small cavern."

Winger took a deep breath, a learned reflex, for angels really didn't need to breathe. "This is the exfiltration site?"

"More or less. You and your team, with Liu, will board the geoplane. The plane will then submerge below ground, and head northeast to the true exfiltration site."

"Where's that, sir?"

Kincade leveled an even gaze at Winger and Glance. "Inside Russia. On the eastern shores of the Kamchatka Peninsula, at a remote site chosen for this purpose."

"General, why Kamchatka? Wouldn't it be safer to exfiltrate completely by geoplane?"

"That's what we hope the Chinese will be thinking too. They're going to be looking for geoplane ops around Beijing and this area. There's every reason to think you may be tailed. We're taking you off the geoplane at a shore location a hundred kilometers north of Petropavlovsk. From there, you'll be boarding a UNIFORCE submarine, with escorts. You'll be traveling to the real debriefing site in the Aleutians, a place called Attu Island, well inside American territory. A full team from Q2 will be there."

Now Winger watched as Kincade's simulated tactical map highlighted the extraction route with blinking red dots, from Beijing through the Ming Tombs and Kamchatka all the way to the Aleutians.

"Sir, with all due respects, this operation seems really complicated."

"That's because it is. It is a high-risk extraction operation. But remember this, son. General Liu Xichang is an extremely high-value target. He's worth a lot to us and his knowledge of Red Harmony equipment, tactics, strategy, research and links to China are of incalculable value. UNSAC feels the mission is worth the risk. Every aspect of Seismic Snatch and Shadow Warrior has been studied by SOFIE and our intel and special ops people. We have contingency plans for pretty much everything. But, Colonel, listen to what I'm saying: the safety and security of Detachment Alpha is paramount in this operation. Under no circumstances whatsoever are you to jeopardize that. I will give up this high-value target to preserve opsec in our own operations. What you know of Quantum Corps ops and tactics cannot fall into enemy hands. Is that clear?"

Winger and Glance both quickly nodded.

"If at any time you feel the mission has been irreparably compromised and your own viability and lives are threatened, you are hereby ordered to execute General Order Twelve. Is that understood?"

While Al Glance looked puzzled, for he had never heard of such an order, Winger's face was somber and grim. General Order Twelve was only issued to specially equipped angels such as himself. It meant that if the game went south, an angel so equipped had the authority and the ability to terminate all Detachment members on the spot, with targeted Big Bang replications and combat disassembly of all operatives. The Order was specific in its details: there was to be nothing left for the enemy to use or analyze. Only scattered atoms.

"I understand, sir."

Kincade relaxed slightly and sat back in his chair. The tactical globe continued to wink its red dots at them. "I've put a lot on your plate, Colonel and I know that. The Corps and UNIFORCE will support both these operations to the maximum extent possible. But for diplomatic reasons, we can't be too obvious about it. China's a sovereign nation and a Security Council member. That's why the operations are designed the way they are."

Glance seemed to understand. "Plausible deniability, sir?"

"Something like that. Colonel, you won't really be alone inside China. Commander Swire's geoplanes will never be far away. One of the contingencies is to extract the Detachment that way, if we have to. But that's both time-consuming and potentially disruptive to everything we're trying to achieve. I said you won't really be alone, Colonel, but let me elaborate. Much of the success of these ops depends on you and your people...more than many of your ops before. Timing and resourcefulness will be needed. Your people need to train as hard as they ever have before. Your lives depend on it."

"General, how much should I reveal to the rest of my platoon?"

Kincade handed him a small button-sized capsule. "This contains all the security protocols and parameters you need to know. Memorize it and destroy it. Both missions have been approved by UNSAC and you will begin training and fitting out immediately. Some of your people will support Seismic Snatch and some will support Shadow Warrior. Only you, Sergeant Glance and Commander Swire will know which is the real extraction operation."

Winger blinked hard. "We'll be ready, sir. My people are the best in the Corps."

Kincade nodded. "I know they are, Colonel. I'm counting on that. Get a good night's sleep tonight, son. Training begins at 0600 hours tomorrow."

Winger and Glance stood, saluted and left Kincade's office. On the night time walk across the grassy quadrangle to the barracks and the BOQ, neither of them said a word. The magnitude of what was being asked of them left no room for comment.

By unspoken agreement, they both wound up at the commissary bar, nicknamed Yucatan Sally's.

They both needed something cold, sudsy and frosty to soothe their growing sense of jangling nerves.

Chapter 2: "Spreading Shadows"

Beijing, China

Zhongnanhai Compound

April 6, 2064

0730 hours, Earth Universal Time (EUT)

The flight into Beijing Capital Airport went off without incident. Johnny Winger's Detachment Alpha deplaned and were met immediately by two uniformed officers from the Peoples Liberation Army. Colonel Hu introduced himself and his comrade, Lieutenant Jiang. Winger knew that the two officers were supposed to be UNIFORCE assets but nothing was said or hinted at to show that.

"We have a lifter all ready for you, Colonel Guang. This way, please."

As the six of them followed—Winger, Al Glance, Joe Vinh, Angel Barnes, Stella D'Garza and Sherm Cuddy—Winger prayed his configuration changes and the nanoderm treatments for the others would hold up to close scrutiny. They were trying to pass as PLA officers themselves; anything out of the ordinary might invite questions...or worse.

The small black lifter, resembling a giant version of the entomopter that had landed on Sadi Vishnapuram's bean curd, rotated into the smoggy sky and flew north over the vast metropolis of Beijing toward the center of the city. The Zhongnanhai compound was directly west of the Forbidden City and had long been a haven for senior political and military leadership.

They circled the broad thoroughfare of Ch'ang-An and passed directly over Tien An Men Square before settling below a line of trees. The lifter pad at Zhongnanhai sat in a small clearing, surrounded by palms and eucalyptus, hard by the shores of a lake called Chung Hai.

Colonel Hu bade them depart. "The packbots will gather your luggage. Please, follow me."

They wound up in a small cottage on the eastern shore of the lake, within sight of the Water Clouds Pavilion and the western walls of the Forbidden City. The cottage was comfortably furnished, allotted a servbot and a packbot—Glance muttered to Winger 'no doubt to keep an eye on us too'\-- for the use of guests and within walking distance of the State Council Hall, where Winger's bifurcated 'twin' would give a brief presentation. A short walk along a tree-lined path of pea gravel and across a bridge and they would be there.

Hu made sure the furnishings satisfied the guests. Properly assured that all seemed in order, the Colonel smiled a mirthless smile. "A staff car will be by to pick you up at 1900 hours tonight, for the reception at the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Until then—" Hu let himself out and he and Jiang quickly disappeared into the trees.

"Well," said Stella D'Garza, sitting herself down on a divan of embroidered brocade, "this beats Copernicus City all to hell. A girl could get used to this."

"Don't," said Winger. "First things first...it's a cinch this placed is bugged to the hilt. And those bots are more than just servants. We have to get our gear out and sorted. We have about ten hours before Hu comes calling for us. Angel, you and Sherm do something to occupy our bot friends, away from the rest of us. I think we can probably use the closets for starters." To Joe Vinh, he said, "Corporal, stay in that configuration for now. I'll have to bifurcate to keep up appearances." He picked up one small bag that contained critical equipment...detection gear tuned to the anticipated emissions from General Liu's halo, courtesy of Q2 Intelligence. "We'll need this gadget to find our target. Al, disappear somewhere and get it activated."

"Will do, Colonel." Glance took the bag and vanished into a pantry space.

For his part, Winger slipped into a small closet, which fortunately had a light overhead. A quick check with his own sensors determined that no obvious scanners or detection gear was near. He felt among heavy coats and hangars, making sure they weren't bugs themselves; with the right config, a swarm could resemble anything. He found nothing obvious.

Bi-furcating an existing para-human swarm entity was really a matter of controlled replication. Winger had only tried it once before. The process would necessarily give off sharp emissions of thermals and electromagnetics, so it was best to find an out-of-the-way spot to begin. The lab at the Mesa had already created the config and tested it.

Winger pressed his fingers against the side of his head in the manner of a coded input. Straight away, he could both see and feel bots sloughing off his arms, hands and legs, flowing away in a faint sparkling stream, which swirled in faint air currents as the stream gathered itself into its programmed form.

For many minutes, the stream swirled and sparkled as its constituent bots slammed atoms to build structure...first a foot, then another foot, appeared out of the fog that had now thickened at the floor of the closet. More swirling and eye-popping flashes, and a portion of a leg materialized, then a hip. Throughout the process, Winger watched carefully as his own doppelganger slowly took shape. At times, it was like watching a mirror reflection come to life.

When the bifurcation was over, the closet was a bit more crowded. As the mist cleared, Johnny Winger beheld...himself. In the pale light, he examined the second angel closely, looking for the slightest flaws in the config control. He checked finger tips, ears, lips, the nose, for edges and corners were notorious for tracking and control issues. But he saw nothing that wouldn't pass close inspection.

"Colonel," he said to his double, "looks like the lab did its homework. How does it feel?"

The Winger double replied, "Just fine, Colonel. I feel a little empty and need some more atomgrabbing to fill out, but otherwise, I'm ready to rock and roll."

Winger—the original—chuckled. "No need for that. You stay here in the closet, until 1800 hours—I've already set the timer in your controller. Maintain configuration state one...minimal structure. If anybody looks inside the closet, they'll see a cloud of dust. At that moment, assume config state Alpha, just like you are now, and leave the closet. Stay in the cottage until Colonel Hu's staff car arrives. Then go with the Colonel to the reception. You are to inform the Colonel—or whoever picks you up—that the others have left on foot. I'm sure that'll create panic and confusion...the Chinese don't want people just wandering around Zhongnanhai on their own. While they try to figure out what's going on, you re-config to state one and disperse, per your normal program. Understood?"

The Winger double said, "I understand. Where will you and the rest of the Detachment be?"

Winger replied, "That's not for you to know. But with any luck, it'll be a long way from here. Okay, assume config one now...."

He watched the double slowly de-materialize into a faint haze of dust—first the face became blurry, then faded out, followed by shoulders dissolving, then upper arms and before he shut the door, all that remained was a sparkling cloud and two rapidly disintegrating lower legs.

Winger left the closet, shaking his head. This process still gives me the creeps. But he knew it was necessary.

Al Glance grabbed Winger and pulled him aside. They stepped out onto a small porch that overlooked the lake.

"Detachment ready for Phase Two, sir." He indicated the western walls of the Forbidden City. "No signal yet from the halo monitor, but it should be somewhere over there...and below."

With nanoderm alterations and uniform changes, the entire Detachment Alpha now resembled a squad of Palace Museum police. The disguise of black uniforms with proper insignia and bill caps would be needed to penetrate the Forbidden City gates without arousing undue suspicion. Winger himself would maintain the appearance of Major General Guang Zhou Li, flag officer in the Peoples Molecular Forces.

"Let's go," Winger ordered.

As one, Detachment Alpha set off for the Forbidden City's West Glorious Gate. They moved silently but quickly through some gardens and came to the gate in ten minutes, without incident.

Four Palace police guards manned a checkpoint. Winger presented himself as General Guang, Peoples Molecular Forces.

A beefy officer rose and saluted smartly. "Identification, please." He indicated a stand beside his table, with a hood for facial and retinal scan. Winger placed his face inside the hood, holding his breath that his configuration was good enough. The entire operation depended on whether their disguises would pass muster. Seconds later, the thing chimed and flashed green.

The guard waved them through the gate.

"Open sesame," muttered Stella D'Garza. She looked around, shuddering. "This whole place gives me the creeps."

The Detachment walked briskly, as smartly as they could along a pea gravel path.

Al Glance quietly studied the feed from his halo sensor on a wristpad. Winger hung back to see for himself.

"Signal's getting stronger, Skipper. We're heading in the right direction. It's faint but there...so far."

"Thank God Red Harmony halos blast out emissions like a bomb going off. I hope Liu's okay."

"No way to tell from this," Glance admitted.

The air was thick with a pall of smog but a corner tower loomed out of the smog to their right.

"Lots of eyes on us now," remarked Angel Barnes.

"And other things," added Sherm Cuddy. "Keep moving and don't look up. We're supposed to look like we belong here."

Glance watched the signal waver, then spike and grow stronger. "That building seems to be it, Colonel...I mean, General. To the left."

Winger checked his own internal memory. "The Hall of Military Eminence. Head that way."

The Hall was a low building of red screen panels and an upswept bronze roof of tile. Heroic propaganda banners and portraits hung from the eaves, exhorting the masses to greater effort. Winger silently ran one through his translator: Exert unyielding struggle to preserve greater harmony.

He smiled wryly. Couldn't have said it better myself.

With Glance following the signal on his wristpad, the Detachment marched up a stone path bordered with stone fencing. The fence posts bore emperor heads cast in granite and marble. They entered the Hall of Military Eminence.

The front gallery was filled with military gear from centuries past: helmets, chain mail breast plates, pikes and swords, all arranged chronologically by dynasty...Ming here, Sung there, Tang over there. Vids and holos danced about the exhibits, bringing squeals of delight from an army of small children surrounding one collection.

Just then, the floor seemed to shake. Shouts and cries of alarm erupted. Pictures and vases swayed, one porcelain cup crashed to the tile floor and shattered. The entire floor seemed to undulate in waves.

In the commotion, tourist couples and the children were quickly shepherded outside.

Winger said to Glance, "I believe Boundary Patrol has arrived."

Glance nodded. "Commander Swire and her geoplanes—"

"Shake, rattle and roll," Joe Vinh said behind them. "Part of the diversionary op."

They moved through the gallery of armor and swords into another gallery beyond. This room was crammed with row after row of panels of intricate calligraphy from every dynasty. Winger spied a heavy lacquered screen in one corner, fronted by a desk. The desk was manned by two Palace police officers, both standing and picking up items that had fallen to the floor. More tremors struck and the officers looked up and around in alarm, jabbering and gesturing at each other.

Winger felt a hand on his arm. It was Glance.

"Halo signal's going off scale high. We're near, real near, sir."

"Maybe there's something behind the screen." Winger went to the desk, identified himself.

"I have orders to go below and retrieve a prisoner from the complex."

The guard glared at him as if he had two heads, still clearly unnerved from the tremors. "Identification...er, please."

Winger stuck his face inside the recognizer. This time, the chime was different. Lights flashed red.

Just as the other guard was reaching for a side arm, Joe Vinh pushed forward and reacted instantly. Sloughing bots off his right arm, he commanded his little army to go big bang. With more tremors rattling the entire gallery, knocking calligraphy panels over like dominoes, the guard shrank back as the small cloud of bots exploded like a supernova of light.

"Ahh..arrgghhh...!" The guards swatted and flailed as Vinh poured more bots into the formation. The blinding cloud swelled rapidly and fell upon both of them as the Detachment troopers hung back to let the fog of mechs do their work. Soon, the desk and the floor were fully enveloped in an achingly bright glow, as both officers were explosively disassembled in front of them. It was D'Garza who saw an arm flash out of the fog, a gun in its fingers—

"Look out!" She pushed Barnes and Winger out of the way, just as the weapon discharged a mag pulse, which boomed out and ricocheted around the gallery.

With the tremors and the swarm enveloping him, the guard's aim was bad and he missed them, then the arm disappeared amid shrieks of terror. After a few minutes, the glow of nanomech hell began to subside.

Winger eased passed what was left of the desk and shoved the lacquered screen aside. He stopped short. The corner of the gallery was given over to cylindrical bulk of a large freight lift, hidden behind the screen. Winger pushed the screen away and everyone crowded around the lift.

"How do we get in?"

"Leave that to me," Winger said. He pressed his own arm against the lock unit, and let a few bots drift away. Looking like a tendril of glittering smoke, the tiny swarm entered the lock and soon after it began smoldering and smoking. After a few tries, Winger with help from Sherm Cuddy, forced the door to hiss open. The lift was large enough to hold the entire Detachment.

The lift then shuddered with more tremors. Something heavy crashed to the floor on the other side of the gallery; it looked like an overhead beam.

Winger studied the lift controls. "This thing needs some kind of pass key...see all the slots at the floors."

Just then, Angel Barnes appeared with a small bowl. "Found this on the floor beside the guards...what's left of them." The bowl contained a clutch of card-sized badges, all attached to lanyards.

Winger grabbed one and studied the lift controls. There seemed to be ten levels. "Let's go to the bottom and work our way back up. We'll let Al guide us with his halo sensor."

After a few gut-wrenching tremors and shudders, Winger tried cards until the lift lurched into motion. They rode the lift all the way down to the tenth level, then on Glance's advice, went back up one level to the ninth. Winger let the door hiss open and cautiously stuck his head out.

The place was a vast conical open space, wide at the bottom, narrowing as the walls converged over their heads, hewn right out of the bedrock underlying Beijing and the Forbidden City. Concentric rings of walkways and scaffolding circled the space, each ring sporting numerous openings. "Maybe side tunnels," suggested Cuddy, in amazement. "Looks like scores of them."

"Reminds me of Lions Rock," Winger agreed.

The tremors had loosened a steady stream of rock and rubble from the sides of the vast cavern. Scaffolding swayed and banged against the rock walls and knots of people scurried along slumping walkways, trying to find safer places.

"Come on," Winger motioned to the others. "Al, what do you show on your sensor?"

Glance pointed along the scaffolding at their level. "That way. Signal's real strong that way."

They found a side tunnel, blocked by a massive locked and barred door. Winger watched the chaos and confusion swirling around them. Nobody was paying any attention to them. He made a command decision that they could risk another swarm bang.

"Joe, get up here." Vinh appeared immediately.

"Sir?"

"Use your bots again. Big bang that door. I have a feeling Liu's in some kind of cell behind it."

As ordered, Vinh waved his arm across the metal face of the door, which mounted an impressive array of locks, bolts and latches. A tiny pad at the top contained several peepholes. While Vinh was prepping his bots for discharge, Cuddy was tall enough to peer inside.

He whistled. "Cell block, for sure, Colonel. Dozens of them. The tunnel curves out of sight way back there."

Glance added, "My readings are as strong as ever. If I'm tuned to Liu's halo, the man's back there somewhere."

"Fire in the hole!" yelled Vinh. Everybody moved away.

In seconds, the door was engulfed in a blinding blue-white glow. Trillions of ANAD-style mechs began explosive disassembly of the door and surrounding walls. More tremors loosened a seam of rock inside the tunnel and heads ducked as rubble cascaded down on them.

"Come on, come on—"muttered Stella D'Garza.

Before the glow had even subsided fully, Winger stuck his own leg into the fire and kicked at the door. It crumbled into fiery embers, smoldering and smoking. The Detachment filed into the cell block, one after another, mag weapons at the ready.

"I'm following your lead," Winger told Glance.

The Detachment CC2 stumbled through ankle deep dust and rock, following his sensors. In a few moments, he announced they were there.

"Got to be this one, Skipper. Signal peaks and drops off as I move around. Try this one."

Joe Vinh did his usual job on the cell door. After the glow had dropped off, Winger stepped through and found a small man standing on top of his bunk, trying to stanch a stream of rock and dirt falling from the ceiling.

"General Liu Xichang?" Winger presumed. The prisoner turned, startled, nearly falling off the bunk. A quick lunge from Angel Barnes caught him, helped him down.

"It's...did you--?"

Winger helped him upright. "We're from Quantum Corps and we're getting you out of this place, General. Get your things. We've got to—"

But his words were cut off when a fierce tremor shook the cellblock. The bunk, anchored into the rock wall, came loose and crashed to the floor.

"Come on!" Winger yelled. With help from D'Garza and Barnes, they hustled Liu out, still wobbly and unsteady.

They pushed back out onto the ninth-level scaffolding and immediately ran into throngs of panic-stricken cartel workers fleeing for the lifts. It was like battling ocean waves and the troopers battled and shoved and kicked and pushed their way through, but it was slow and the lifts were jammed with fleeing people.

Winger decided, "This is never going to work. We've got to get to the exfiltration point by a certain time or Boundary Patrol won't wait." Then he had an idea. "Joe," he called Vinh to the front of the Detachment. Vinh squeezed through and slid his way up.

"Sir?"

"Joe, move ahead of us. Assume config state one now. Start disassembling yourself and maybe we can force our way through."

Vinh did as ordered and as soon as his head had begun devolving into a swirling cloud of flashing pops and lights, like a horde of fireflies, a gap in the crowds began to open.

"Come on!" Winger motioned. The troopers battered their way through, their high-value asset inside a moving perimeter of troopers.

Vinh continued to decompose. His head was gone and his arms were ropes of bots losing all structural coherence. Alarmed, people shrank back. One fell shrieking from the scaffolding and plummeted down to the cavern floor, into gathering throngs assembling below them. Vinh's legs began to fade and before long, what had once been trooper Corporal Joe Vinh was little more than a swarm of buzzing flies, pressing through flesh and arms and legs as the Detachment fought its way to the lifts.

Flinging and dragging others out of the lift cab, the Detachment boarded the elevator and began a slow ascent. But a new problem soon occurred.

The lift was stopping at every level. When the doors hissed open, surging throngs of panicked people pushed into the cab. The troopers had to push back and it was a close call at every stop. Fingers and arms were sometimes caught in the doors, necessitating more pushing and shoving. Winger shook his head.

"This isn't working. We'll never get to the top. Next stop, use your weapons. Do whatever you have to."

Twice, the troopers opened fire with their mag pistols, hosing down the front lines of people trying to force their way in. With the entire lift tube swaying from tremors and quakes, and seams and gouts of rock raining down on everybody, panic swept through the mobs. More fell to their deaths from upper levels and soon falling rock fragments were mixed in with falling bodies.

"Jeez," muttered D'Garza, holding tight to General Liu. "This is insane."

Finally, the Detachment made it to the surface level.

They exited the lift cab, pushed through fleeing throngs and left the Hall of Military Eminence, through choking clouds of dirt and smog. More tremors buckled the pathway.

Sherm Cuddy was half-carrying Liu who clutched his head in terror.

"My head! The halo...it's squeezing...like a vise—"

D'Garza got in his face. She knew full well what might happen if their prize didn't keep his panicked thoughts under control. Liu jerked into uncontrollable convulsions, back-snapping contortions. She winced at the sight.

In her mind's eye, D'Garza could well imagine what was going on inside Liu's head. The general jerked as if stung, pulled at her grasp, nearly throttled himself. He hung limp for a few seconds, until D'Garza and Cuddy stood him up again. She could well imagine the battle inside his skull, a froth churned in dopamine soup, as the mechs plied their trade, working the synaptic gaps like a musical instrument. A symphony of agony played out on Liu's contorted face.

"General, think of something else. You're triggering the halo!"

Liu's face pleaded with her, saying in strained facial muscles what his mouth couldn't say. "I can't--!"

"Think of something more pleasant! Concentrate, focus, damn it!"

Liu tried. "Trip...to Hainan Island...beach...soft sand—"

"That's it! Think of that...do that!"

Liu squeezed his eyes shut as they dragged him across the bridge to the Zhongnanhai compound, past the eucalyptus trees, through the garden.

"Yes--! The breezes...the smell of salt...it was-"

Through the garden to the lifter pad they took him. In time, the agony on his face subsided and at the edge of the clearing, Cuddy and D'Garza lay General Liu down carefully in a flower bed.

Winger came over. "Is he okay?"

"It's his halo, sir," said D'Garza. Faces crowded around. Winger waved them back to give the man some air. "It went off. Probably all the stress, the panic, the quakes."

"Keep him quiet. I've got to signal the lifter."

Winger stabbed a button on the side of his wristpad. A small square signaler had been attached to his wristpad at Mesa de Oro, transmitting a split-second burst on a special frequency. Moments later, even as they staggered under continuing waves of tremors and shakes, a whir stirred the leaves of the trees. Out of the smog and dust of the night sky came the articulating legs of a black, unmarked lifter. The ship settled to the pad. Winger and Glance raced forward, saw welcome faces in the hatch and waved the Detachment to board.

"You sure are a welcome sight!" Winger yelled over the jet noise. "Maybe the handsomest guy I ever saw."

The lifter crewman laughed and threw off her helmet, revealing short jet-black hair and lively eyes. "Thanks, Colonel. Never had a guy say that to me before...welcome aboard. You have the prize?"

"Right here." He helped Cuddy and D' Garza with Liu, now nearly motionless in their arms. They piled aboard the lifter and Winger noticed the lifter jockey up in the cockpit: he'd worked with Mendez the Cuban cigarman before. Mendez twisted in his seat, spied Winger and nodded, grinning with recognition.

"Welcome aboard, sir." His toothy smile gleamed white in the dim light of the cabin. "Quantum Corps Jet Special. Next stop...exfiltration point."

The lifter leaped into the sky amid a swirl of dust and smog and disappeared into the clouds.

Winger sank back against the webbing of the cabin. The very first thing he did was loosen his tie and PMF jacket and gulp in tons and tons of cold, smoggy, night-time Beijing air.

It was better than ice cream on a hot summer day.

Then he crawled through all the groaning bodies to the rear of the compartment, to see about Liu Xichang.

The tactical plan for Operation Shadow Warrior had put the exfiltration point inside one of the Ming Tombs, a half-hour flight from central Beijing. Once over the park containing the Tombs, Mendez circled at low altitude, hunting for a hole in the smog. He found one and set them down at the edge of a parking lot.

As soon as the Detachment had piled out of the lifter, the ground began a series of waves and tremors, which buckled one of the lifter skids and sent most of them staggering to their knees.

"Wow!" yelled Barnes, picking herself up. She examined some bad scrapes on her hands and wrists. "Boundary Patrol must have eaten an extra helping of oatmeal this morning."

Joe Vinh, now re-assembled into Normal config, was ever the analyst. "That one was transverse...got to be a sonic lens. BP's letting really 'em have it!"

The lifter had set down just in front of the entrance to the Changling Tomb, its bronze and orange upswept tile roof gleaming in the dusty light of street lamps. The Detachment hustled along a curving path made of slate and cut stone, past gargoyles of lions' and dragons' heads leering at them, toward the entrance. Just at a ramp leading up into the entrance hall, twin statues stared back at them, marble likenesses of the Yongle emperor bearded, draped in robes and glaring vacantly at all who approached.

The siting of the Ming dynasty imperial tombs had been carefully chosen according to principles of feng shui. According to these, bad spirits and evil winds descending from the North had to be deflected; therefore, an arc-shaped valley at the foot of the Jundu Mountains, north of Beijing, had been selected. This forty-square-kilometer area—enclosed by the mountains in a pristine, quiet valley full of dark earth, tranquil water and other necessities as per feng shui—would become the necropolis of the Ming dynasty.

A seven-kilometer road named the Spirit Way led into the complex, lined with statues of guardian animals and officials, with a front gate consisting of a three-arches, painted red, and called the "Great Red Gate". The Spirit Way, or Sacred Way, started with a huge stone memorial archway lying at the front of this area. Constructed in 1540, during the Ming dynasty, this archway was one of the biggest stone archways in China.

The Detachment reached the pavilion that was the entrance to the Changling Tomb and went inside. The pavilion exhibit hall was empty and their hurried steps echoed on tile floors. Down a curving ramp, past security ropes and barriers, past facial recognizers and unmanned checkpoints, they descended into the tomb entrance and soon found themselves walking single file along a curving corridor inlaid with mosaics and tiles on its walls. They came to a large, low-ceilinged cavern.

The cavern was filled from one wall to the other with ordered ranks of waist-high terracotta soldiers, horses and chariots, the Emperor's palace guard, on site to protect the Emperor as he came and went from the underworld.

Angel Barnes shivered. "Gives me the shakes."

"Reminds me of about a dozen bad vids I've seen," agreed Al Glance.

Winger had been given step-by-step, turn-by-turn directions on where to go once they were inside Changling Tomb. The navigation instructions had been loaded in a special module inside his processor and he now accessed those files, seeing in his 'mind's eye' clear markers and text indicating what direction they should take.

"This way!" he called out to the others.

They skirted the edge of the excavation, past ropes and more barriers and plaques in many languages detailing the view below. Presently, moving slowly but steadily around the pit, they came to a side tunnel, waist high.

It was blocked by wooden barriers and marked off. A few kicks from Glance and Cuddy demolished the barriers and, finding no nanobotic barriers beyond or further obstacles, they poured into the tunnel and soon came to a working archeological dig, a vast pit, lit with strong lamps on all sides, concentric shoveling lines marking the edges of the pit. They passed tables filled with all manner of implements: picks and chisels, shovels and hammers, sieves and filters and all manner of pans, tools of the archeologist's trade.

"In here," Winger ordered, following his nav directions. Past the excavation was yet another tunnel, this one narrow and low, with a distant sound of burbling water faintly audible. Rumbles and tremors rocked the tunnel and seams of dust fell on them.

Then the tunnel widened into another cavern and there sat a Boundary Patrol geoplane, hissing and creaking and gleaming like a big mole in the faint light.

Winger practically laughed out loud, spying none other than Julia Swire. They saluted, then hugged.

"Are we glad to see you, Commander."

Swire beamed at him, then flashed a broad smile. "Need a taxi, Colonel? Got a special today...Badger's offering jet service to Russia. Of course, the view's not much."

"We got our man. We got what we came for, but he's in a bad way. Liu's having problems with his halo. D'Garza's trying to help him now."

Swire's face became serious. "Get aboard quickly, Colonel. I've got Chinese or Red Harmony ships right on my tail. They can't be more than ten minutes' behind us."

The Detachment boarded. Winger staked out a seat on A deck, behind Swire and her Driver/Systems Operator. The DSO was a bright-eyed kid named Robles, who grinned back at him.

"Secure the hatches. Unship the tracks, DSO. BOP, get the borer going. We need to make like a tree and get the hell out of here."

BOP was Borer Operator Ling Li, a Chinese recruit fresh out of tectonic school. She twisted some joysticks, pecked at a keyboard and the portholes were soon filled with a blinding blue-white glow as the geoplane's borer lens came online. Her trillions of specially configured nanobots would soon form a massive globe of mechs to melt and disassemble the ship's way into the hard carbonate rock of the North China Craton.

"Mostly igneous stuff," said Swire as the geoplane lurched into motion. "Hundreds of kilometers of the stuff, limestone and marble, all the way to the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia."

"Good for boring?" Winger asked.

Swire agreed. "And for sonic lens...if we need it. SS1, anything on the scopes?"

The SS1 was Sensors and Surveillance Technician Michaelis. She wiped her brown curls back and studied the board. "Very faint, Commander. Same signature as before, astern...maybe ten kilometers, bearing one-five-five degrees."

Swire nodded. "Maintain speed and heading. It's probably our old friend, still sniffing for us. DPS, keep the sonic lens powered up."

"Aye, Commander," said the Defense and Protective Systems Operator Kurasawa.

Three decks aft, it was Al Glance who first noticed something odd about Liu Xichang's face and head.

Previously unnoticed, a small detached force of halo mechs had reached its objective inside Liu's head. Slowing to transit the narrowing tube of interstitial fluid, the force passed through the lachrymal duct at the corner of Liu's eye and surfaced like a fleet of miniature subs through the corneal film to the outer surface of the eyeball. There they floated for a few seconds, until the replication order came.

Glance saw the pressure spike from Liu's eye, a fraction of a second before the swarm ballooned out into the room.

"Ah...guys, something seems to be--"

"LOOK OUT--!" D'Garza's scream filled Badger's B deck.

No one was quite sure when the first effects of the halo attack were felt. The debriefs later seemed to converge on the two CQE's, working hard to keep Lui quiet and under control. Stella D'Garza had been applying some soft wet medwipes to Lui's face while Barnes sponged off sweat from his cheeks and forehead.

Both troopers noticed it right away; a shrill keening high-freq tone, almost beyond human hearing, yet irritating in a vaguely unsettling way. Boarding the geoplane, all troopers had donned hypervests, partial rigs that provided some protection, and their sensors registered the attack right away. D'Garza's panicked distress call from the corner of the deck as the nanomechs bored into her rig and arms would linger in everybody's memory for a long time. The other CQE, Corporal Barnes reported a different effect--just as panicky--when she found she couldn't squirm away along the deck floor as fast as she wanted to...by then, the halo swarm was thick enough to form a barely visible fog, almost a blanket, muffling the entire space with exponentially thickening mist. It was something you could barely see but every sensor and caution alarm was going off in in the ship all over the place and you sure as hell could feel the resistance to movement.

"Mass assault swarm!" somebody yelled over the crewnet. It was Glance's voice. The CC2 was already on one knee, swatting madly at the whizzing, spinning cloud of assembler mechs that had engulfed him.

"Bond breakers!" yelled Sherm Cuddy. Cuddy had been wrestling a containment pod into the room when his arm servos quit. The pod slipped and slid out under its own weight, pinning him against the wall. "---aaarrrggghhh!!"

"They've gone airborne!" Johnny Winger had heard the commotion and scuttled aft down the gangway to see what was up. He slipped through the hatch to B deck and immediately recognized the scenario, but too late. They'd wargamed it enough times at the Mesa. "Fall back...fall back! Go to TACREP 1!"

Tactical Response One was already loaded in their controllers. Winger pressed a few buttons on his wrist keypad and pushed through the thick spongy mist, struggling hard to make it to the center of the expanding swarm.

They didn't have long to act. TACREP called for the unit to do an emergency opposed-force counter-nano insertion. Retrieve the master, get containment going, re-establish comm links, and counter-program like hell to beat back the assault before it consumed everything.

The worst thing was that Badger's crew didn't even have hypervests to protect them.

Winger knew full well they had only a few minutes at best. In wargames, ANAD had demonstrated bond-breaking, molecule-disassembling speeds up to a hundred thousand nanometers per second, about a tenth of a meter every second, blown away as just so much atomic debris. Red Harmony halo bots were undoubtedly just as fast, if not faster. If they didn't get countermeasures going quick, the Detachment would cease to exist, not to mention Badger and her crew.

"I'm re-configging...going small" Winger yelled. He worked with several others to free Glance and together they managed to extricate Cuddy. It was like swimming in oily water, trying to exert any effort against the mechs.

Winger hunkered down on the floor, covering himself as best he could, to punch out commands on his keypad. Beneath his knees, the floor itself writhed and hummed like a thing alive. He could feel the high-freq vibration through his field boot. It wouldn't be long before he'd have to ditch the effort and retreat the hell out of that deck.

But he'd be damned if he was going to leave their hard-won prize of General Liu behind.

Winger flailed at the swarm with one hand while he punched buttons: Comm link to SELECT...Program to FBS--Fly-by-Stick. Launch would be opposed insertion. Active defense...ISR Mode. That stood for Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance.

At last, he was done.

"Your master is now fully powered up!" called out Joe Vinh. "You're primed to go, Colonel!"

"I'm launching all groups!" Winger shouted. "Airborne counternano--and get these civilians out of here! Secure that hatch!" With that, Winger's entire body began de-materializing, coming apart and dispersing into combat swarm.

A thermal bloom nearly shorted out Winger's view as he ordered his own bots to maximum-rate replication. Active defense Alpha was a set program they had run scores of times at Mesa de Oro. It called for a combat swarm to replicate basic structure at the fastest possible rate, then seek and destroy all non-self-devices it could detect. As an angel, Winger's disassembly speed was set at the best possible rate for fighting through van der Waals forces and cleaving atom bonds.

Visuals were useless. The thermal bloom and dust exploded into a ball of fire, as the Winger swarm swelled rapidly in an enveloping cloud, engaging the halo bots in a set piece battle of ionizing electrons and atom groups. The white-hot heat expanded like a small nova, almost pulsating as the front lines churned back and forth; Winger's exponential armies rallying to the assault, tangling with uncountable trillions of enemy mechs.

Winger tried to clean up his visuals again. Glance was right; as the image settled in, it looked like a churning, frothy mess. The air grew thick and black with molecular debris.

"Need to grab one of these critters," Winger muttered to himself. He took direct Fly-by-Stick control of a small platoon of replicants. If I can just surround one...damn...like trying to corral a herd of bees.

He drove forward, zeroing in on a detached group of halo bots, scooting away from the main axis of attack, swirling near a corner of the room. What the hell were they up to? Were they under remote control too? Was there some controller miles away joysticking the swarm through the assault? There was no way to tell.

Winger dove at the halo group and executed a perfect entrapment maneuver, neatly bracketing the swarm in a classic octahedral lattice. The enemy mechs pressed outward, buzzing angrily, trying to break out of the lattice, probing for weak spots, but Winger had quickly reinforced his scout group with extra bots.

"Gotcha!" he exulted. Now they'd have something to take to the exfiltration point.

But his triumph was short-lived. Even as he commanded his own bots to propel themselves back toward angel config, shepherding the trapped halo mechs, fending off steady probes of the bond breakers, one of the enemy devices separated itself from the main body. Winger stared in horror as the nanomech suddenly shed all its outer atom group armament in a puff of molecular debris and executed a daring fold/collapse, imploding in on itself in a flurry of segment cleavage and destruction. Whirling on picowatt propulsors like a mad dervish, a blurry core of atoms exploded out of the sleet of fragments and rocketed through the lattice like a bullet. In a fraction of a second, it was through the lattice and gone, off the field of view.

Johnny Winger could only shake his head at the maneuver. They'd wargamed tactical escapes from all kinds of capture maneuvers but nothing like this. It didn't even seem possible.

Ten to one that was the master replicant, he told himself. Programmed to evade capture anyway it could, or commit atomic 'suicide' if it couldn't. He couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't jousting with an unseen human controller somewhere nearby.

Fighting bots in the land of atoms was all about leverage. Kind of like ballroom dancing, with fists, he had once remarked to Al Glance.

A new bot came up and Winger gave it a taste of his bond disrupters. The electron discharge snapped off a few effectors and sent the thing spinning off into the distance. But no sooner had he done that than a squadron of them fell on him and he found himself engulfed in no time.

Winger had learned a thing or two about his effectors in the weeks since his last encounter with bad bots. The secret was to keep your propulsors churning, keeping driving forward, keep your energy up. If he did that, he found he could slip out of almost any grapple and brain a bot with whatever effector was free. He particularly liked his carbene grabbers and he had developed a dance step he liked to call the kiss and clobber...he'd let himself be grappled, momentarily shut off his propulsors and almost relax. When the bad guy had retracted and moved in for the kill, he did a quick left-right spin, fired up his propulsors and slashed right across the bot's mid-section—where most of them had fewer effectors—knocking the bejeezus out of the thing and pulling free to pinch and slash some more.

It worked every time. Winger had in the meantime gone to max replication, at Glance's suggestion, and the melee was underway. All up and down the line of engagement, like a collision of bird flocks, the swarms engaged...twisting, slashing, grabbing, zapping. Slowly, using some new maneuvers, Winger was able to push back and contain the enemy swarms.

"It's working, Al!" he exulted over his coupler link back to Al Glance and the macro world. "It's working! These bozos are getting smacked and spanked like you wouldn't believe!"

Glance's voice was distant but reassuring. "I believe it...I believe it...I told you it would work, Skipper. Just keep after 'em...I'm reading mass fluctuations at the margins...that means your guys are holding their own. Try your enzymatic knife when you get in close."

So, he did. Everything he tried worked. Maybe the enemy bots were slow. Maybe their configs were wrong. Whatever it was, Johnny Winger found he was winning a battle he'd never dreamed he would have to fight. This wasn't half bad, this living like an atom. You had to watch your momentum and things stuck to each other like glue. Van der Waals and Brownian motions were a bitch, but it was the same for the enemy.

Leverage and momentum, that was the key.

Inside of half an hour, the battle seemed to be won. The fog that had drifted across B deck seemed to be lifting as the last few bots were swept up. Somehow, with a little luck and lot of smack, he'd been able to disperse the enemy bots and quarantine and isolate any stragglers.

The skirmish continued for another five minutes, but Winger could tell the halo bots were steadily losing the battle. Group by group, the enemy bots were steadily and surely overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Winger did some final mopping up, then commanded his own bots to re-assemble into Normal config, the routine form of an angel. The process took about five minutes, during which time a faint fog of flashing lights began swirling, then coagulating together until finally, the barest form of Johnny Winger appeared. First in ghostly outline, then with increasing, thickening density, the face and form of the Detachment commander took shape.

When he was nearly at Normal config, Winger asked, "How's our guest doing?"

Barnes was dabbing wet wipes at Liu's sweaty forehead and face. "As well as could be expected. Vitals look okay, but there's no telling what that eruption did to his mind. We'll have to get him to better facilities than this."

"At least he's alive," D'Garza added. Winger drifted over, but just then, Glance's words were cut off as Badger shuddered violently. For a brief moment, there was an unmistakable sensation of sliding, sliding sideways and downward. Almost at the same moment, something hit Badger's nose with a sickening crunch and the geoplane shuddered again and ground violently to a halt. The cabin tilted to port and stayed tilted.

The cabin was deathly still for a few moments, then the creaking and groaning of the hull under tremendous pressure started.

"What happened?" Winger asked, wincing as the tortured sounds of the hull being compressed grew louder. He crawled out of B deck and went forward to A deck along the gangway.

Up on A deck, Commander Swire was picking herself up off the deck as Robles scanned his instruments nervously. "Borer is offline, Commander."

Kurasawa, the DPS tech, saw something bad on his display. His mouth went dry. "Looks like a sonic lens attack!

Swire waved Winger to stay down on the deck. "Looks like our friends have caught up to us."

"More P waves coming!" yelled Michaelis, the SS1. "Big time P wave pulse, maybe ten seconds out."

"Turn us into the wave!" yelled Swire. "Now!"

The DSO replied, "Turning to match bearing!"

Badger heeled to starboard, her deck canting down as she swung slowly around. Just finishing her turn, the first of the powerful compression waves struck amidships.

The geoplane shuddered violently. Her hull stanchions groaned and creaked as vast stresses slammed into the hull. Swire had just finished cinching up her seat harness when the pulse smashed into them.

"More P waves approaching!" said Kurasawa. "A whole train of them—"

"Sonic lens signature," added Michaelis. "It's a man-made series of pulses...."

Again and again, Badger was wracked with compression waves speeding rapidly through the pyroclastic stone. The whole of the North China craton was an alkaline volcanic arc formed from subduction of the Pacific tectonic plate slamming north and under the Eurasian plate. The rock was hard, dense, igneous volcanic sediment, perfect for transmitting sonic lens pulses. The geoplane shuddered and shimmied, her hull straining under the load of hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure, her inner bulkheads bending and torqueing dangerously as she sought to ride out the storm. Only the nose-on maneuver had saved her from being crushed.

"SS1, source of the pulses?"

Michaelis' hands flew over her console, as she tuned and probed out into the rock strata. "Undetermined, ma'am...too much noise out there. I can't get a solid bearing."

Winger was now belted in at the back of the command deck. "Commander, you've got a sonic lens. Can't you return fire?"

Swire shook her head. "Negative...not until we have a target bearing. We could wind up loosening more rock strata and making things a lot worse."

Winger swore under his breath. It's not like swarm war down here, he told himself. Combat hundreds of meters underground was a whole new world.

Swire checked on their attackers. "Can we get a target bearing, DPS? How many are there out there?"

"Negative," came the answer. "They're bracketing us, so there must be at least two ships. But the signals are lost in all the seismic noise."

Swire explained to Winger. "They're maneuvering to focus their sonic pulses on our position. That magnifies the pulse greatly. DSO, come left heading three-one-five and increase speed to redline. We've got to stay out of their focus zone. We'll take a northwesterly heading for awhile, see if we can out run 'em. Rono, what's ahead?"

Rita Rono was the Geo Engineering tech, GET1. She studied her profiler. "Metamorphic shield, Commander. Granitic gneiss...pretty hard stuff. Some faults and inclusions ahead too. Good for scattering sonic pulses and probe signals."

"Sounds like my kind of place. DSO--?"

"Three-one-five, aye, ma'am. Increasing speed."

Badger was now boring and chewing her way through the rock strata of North China at a depth of five hundred meters, making turns for almost five kilometers an hour. The ship shuddered and shimmied as her speed increased.

A few moments later, the geoplane shuddered violently again and began an immediate violent rolling yaw to their right.

"Another pulse?" Swire asked.

"No, Commander...it's B track. She's slipping, coming loose."

"Slow to one half, DSO. Un-clutch B track and secure it. Ten degrees up angle. Put us on the surface."

"What happened?" Winger asked.

Swire's face was shiny with sweat and her auburn bangs clung to her slick forehead. "One of our tracks is slipping, probably that last pulse. We're asymmetrical in thrust now, just two tread tracks remaining to drive us. With that kind of damage, we've got to surface and check it out."

"Ten degrees up angle, aye, ma'am," replied Robles. Immediately, Badger's deck canted upward and she wallowed and rolled, as her hull protested the maneuver. Swire checked her own status board and saw no hull breaches or leaks...so far. "She's still holding together, thank God. BOP1, can you give us more speed?"

The Borer Operator was a female Boundary Patrol recruit named Ling Li. She shook her black bangs vigorously. "Negative, Commander...borer bots operating at max. We're just at temp redline now. Any more and—"

"I get the picture. Best possible speed...maintain up angle. Put us on the roof."

"More P waves," Michaelis announced. "Impact in thirty seconds. This one'll be close."

Whether by luck or brilliant maneuvering, Badger breached the surface just as the next round of compression waves passed by. She rolled and wallowed like a dog in deep sand, as her bow crashed through surface soil and ground cover. Moments later, the geoplane careened down hard on her tracks and squatted like an out-of-breath armored beetle on a hardpan desert floor.

The geoplane had come to rest in a dry, dusty ravine, hard by the edge of the Gobi desert, surrounded by the tawny slopes of towering sand dunes.

For a few long moments, all was quiet save for the creaking and groaning of her hull.

Swire went over to Michaelis's station. "SS1, report all contacts."

"Showing multiple small contacts on the surface. Dozens of them, all around us. Aerial contacts, too...very far off but closing."

Winger took a peek out a nearby porthole. "I see our contacts, Commander. Take a look."

Swire did that. The geoplane had surfaced right in the middle of a herd of Bactrian camels.

"Damage report, all decks!"

Word came back over the ship's 1MC.

"Borer offline. Probable containment breach."

"Tread B is de-tracked."

"Comms are spotty and intermittent. I think we're being jammed."

Swire checked with Sensors. "Michaelis, report all contacts."

Michaelis ran a hand through thin blond hair. "Surface contacts as reported. Aerial contacts many kilometers out, say maybe twenty. Bearing from the southwest...one zero five degrees, low altitude and closing fast."

Swire looked at Winger. "Chinese aircraft," she decided. "Their geoplanes tracked us here and now they're coming to check us out." She slammed a fist on the bulkhead. "And Badger's too damaged to do anything. We can't burrow deep and we have no surface mobility."

Winger made the obvious call, as Detachment commander. "We'd better get out of here, on foot."

Swire agreed. On the ship's comm, she made the announcement. "All hands, abandon ship! Destroy or secure all classified gear. Abandon ship."

A flurry of motion followed as the ship's crew and the Detachment troopers, with General Liu still reeling from his halo eruption, scurried up and down the gangway, preparing to abandon ship. One after another, the troopers and the crew exited the vehicle, landing on hard desert ground outside. Winds gusted and high clouds streaked by overhead.

The camel and yak herd was half a kilometer north, hovering over a mostly dry streambed and a small patch of bridlegrass. Half a dozen herders glared back at them.

Swire motioned Michaelis over. "Where are our friends?"

"I'm still getting a sensor feed from the ship. Same as before. ETA about fifteen minutes, unless they change course."

Winger headed for the herd, motioning the others to follow. "Get away from the ship. It's exposed and it's an obvious target."

They reached the herd. Two-humped Bactrian camels formed a loose outer perimeter. Wooly yaks foraged inside the circle. Several sturdy horses plodded and grazed among the herd.

Winger went to the tallest, oldest herder, figuring him to be the leader of the group. He wore a dark blue jacket, a traditional Mongolian deel, with a conical hat dangling red tassels. His own sensors scanned and labelled the hat toortsog, in the local dialect. Winger activated the translation and language module in his processor and spoke slowly.

"Bidend tuslamj kheregtei baina. We need help. We're lost."

The herder squinted through tiny eyes from a face burnished tan by the desert sun. He seemed surprised to hear such words from these strangers.

He replied, "Chi khen be? Who are you? Where from?"

Winger, haltingly and using his language module carefully, tried to explain. He described the underground ship they'd come in, how they were fleeing Chinese oppression and needed shelter. Many airplanes were coming and they were all in danger.

This alarmed the herders and they gathered together, jabbering quickly in their native tongue. Watching them in their tunics, their felt upturned boots and caps, Winger had an idea. He approached the leader again, while behind him, he heard Michaelis' strained voice continuing...

"Enemy formation ETA now nine minutes, sir."

Winger asked if he could feel the herder's coat. Blinking hard, the herder reluctantly doffed his jacket and handed it to Winger.

Winger felt the cotton and wool threads of the fabric, all the while smiling back. As he did this, the scan-feel module in his processor analyzed atom geometry and bond energies of the garment's outer molecules. In a minute, he had a complete molecular composition file in his memory. He handed the deel back.

Now Winger moved off to the opposite bank of the stream and waved everyone to stay back. He lowered both arms and let bots flow off his fingers toward the ground, quickly discharging a small cloud of bots now sparkling and twinkling in the hard desert air.

The herders grew alarmed and stepped back abruptly, again chattering among themselves. As they looked on, first alarmed, then with growing curiosity, the small fog bank swelled and covered much of the far bank of the stream. Winger was still visible standing in the middle of the swirling mist. After a few minutes, with Michaelis announcing, "Formation ETA now three minutes," the mist shrouding Winger began to dissipate.

Soon, the mist had been blown away by wind gusts and the herders were visibly startled to see Winger standing alone amid a pile of loose jackets and hats.

The herders were amazed and started gesturing vigorously. The chief jumped the stream and came over.

"Ene id shid uu? Is this magic we see?"

Winger wanted to explain the fabrication process but there was no time. With the enemy formation drawing nearer, he motioned for the troopers and crewmen to come near.

"Put these on, quick. We'll try to blend in with the herd. It's that geoplane they're after."

As fast as they could, the troopers did as he commanded. Noticing how listless and vacant General Liu seemed standing in the back, Angel Barnes and Stella D'Garza went to their prize catch and helped him don the Mongolian outfit.

"Come on, General...put your arms through here. Put this hat on your head...hurry, we've got to get away from here."

When all were dressed, and the herders still muttering and staring at their amazing visitors, the flock of yaks and camels bayed and snorted and slowly drifted under sharp voice commands of the herders, heading further north along the streambed. They had put nearly a kilometer between themselves and Badger, when Sherm Cuddy cried out, pointing to the southeastern horizon.

"Look! There they are!"

Materializing over the snow-capped peaks of the Gobi Altai Mountains, a line of black dots moved toward them at high speed. The force was circling overhead in less than twenty seconds.

Glance craned up to study the attackers, trying to hide most of his face behind the tassels of his toortsog cap.

"Colonel, those are DX-5s. Dragon hyperdrones, I'll bet."

Winger looked up too. "Scores of them. Don't look up. Keep your eyes on the herd. Try to mix in."

The drones swooped and circled above them like vultures and a few unleashed beams which lanced out and scorched, then blasted Badger into smoldering wreckage.

Swire felt her heart leap into her mouth. She clenched, then unclenched her fists. "She was one hell of a good ship," she said to no one in particular.

Thankful that the drones seemed to be ignoring the herd, Winger urged his troopers and their four-legged neighbors along the streambed.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll get out of this, he told himself. But we've got to get comms working, let Ops know what's happened, where we are.

It was a shrill voice that interrupted his thoughts. The cry came from Robles, Badger's DSO.

"Look! Look there on the horizon. Infantry...coming this way."

And as Winger swung around to look, his mouth went dry. A dark line of men and bots and vehicles was churning up rooster tails of dust, and headed in their direction.

Not just infantry, Winger realized. Mantracs too. Robotic warriors, flanking us on both sides.

Chapter 3: "False Herd"

Bukhtara, Mongolia

April 13, 2064

1530 hours, Earth Universal Time (EUT)

"They're trying to surround us," Al Glance muttered.

Winger could see that. He hustled after the chief herdsman, who was ahead of them and prodding a reluctant yak with a stick, and asked a question.

"Tosgon bii yuu? Is there a camp or a village near here?"

The herdsman rubbed a stubbly chin and squinted. Then he pointed to his right, over a ridge of sand dunes.

"Bukhtara."

"Lead us," Winger pleaded.

The herdsman seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, for he also had seen the line of advancing troops.

They moved smartly over the ridges and soon came to a crude gathering of gers, round tents made of felt and stretched over circular wooden frames. The sight of the simple huts gave Winger an idea.

Winger handwaved Joe Vinh over and explained what he had in mind. "Use your feel-scan module. Let's try and replicate more of these tents."

"I hope we have enough time," Vinh said.

"Just do it!"

They had come into Bukhtara at a somber time of camel coaxing. A pair of camels lay in the sand, mother and child, both tied together. The mother had consistently rejected her offspring, much to the annoyance of the herders. Now in the half-light of dusk, a musician wielded a strange instrument, a horsehead fiddle known as morin khuur. He played a mournful tune on the fiddle while all around the camels, villagers chanted "Khuus, khuus, khuus," trying to break the spell that separated mother and child.

As the ceremony proceeded, Winger and Vinh felt-scanned a nearby ger and then moved off to a position just outside the village circle. There, they discharged clouds of their own bots, building up a swelling cloud of flashing lights around them, a phosphorescent dust storm backlit purple and red from the setting sun. Most of the villagers ignored them, choosing to focus on the ceremony with the mother camel and her child. Two village boys, however, stood hand in mouth and gawked at the apparition of nanobotic fabrication. Their eyes widened when the dust began to clear and three additional tents had been added to the village, their felt covering still steaming from the fires of atomic assembly.

Winger went looking for Stella D'Garza, Detachment Alpha's CQE (Comms and Quantum Engineering). He found her standing hands on hips behind the fiddle player, swaying softly to the hypnotic tune.

"Over here—" Winger motioned. D'Garza shook her head out of the spell cast by the music and came over.

"Sir?"

"You still have that coupler set from our own gear?"

"Yes, sir. I grabbed it when we abandoned Badger. Right here—" She patted a small pouch on her web belt.

"I want you to try an encoded burst transmission, max entanglement, to Ops."

D'Garza looked concerned. "Won't that give us away, sir? With that ground force so near, and the drones—"

"Do it. We've got to take the chance. We've achieved our objective and grabbed Liu but we're off course and stuck in the middle of nowhere. Try to get a coupler link going, one burst at a time. Use one of those fabbed tents."

"Yes, sir." D'Garza trotted to a ger that had just been created. It was still smoldering faintly.

Winger watched his troopers and the Badger crew mixing with the locals. That was a good sign. Then he took a look skyward. The oncoming Chinese force had boosted into the sky—a mix of human jetroops and robotic mantrac fliers—and the sight made him think of a flock of armored vultures. They would be on top of Bukhtara in a few minutes. He had an idea and motioned Joe Vinh over. Vinh, like Winger, was an angel, a para-human swarm entity.

"Joe, don't you have a config in your memory called Epidermal Reconstruction?"

Vinh nodded. "Yes, sir. C-112. The bots re-configure as keratinic assemblers and make nanoderm treatment fast and easy. Why, sir?"

Winger tugged at his lower lip, a subconscious habit from his own days as a Normal. "When those troops land, it's a cinch they'll be checking out the whole village. Our people really stand out. If we could do a quick nanoderm, make them look more like herders, it might help."

"I'm calling the config program up now."

Winger called out. "Detachment people! And Badger crew...gather 'round." One by one, the troopers assembled in a circle around Winger and Vinh.

"I've instructed Joe here to set up a quick nanoderm config. He'll swipe your faces with his hand and that'll discharge bots under this program. The bots'll change your face, make you look more like these people." He saw the Chinese force approaching overhead, circling to boost down. "Get to it. We don't have much time."

The troopers formed a ragged line and, one after another, Vinh swiped their faces with loose bots bearing the config. Troopers wandered off, feeling their faces, making jokes, shaking their heads.

Al Glance sniffed. "It makes me look fat. Joe...."

Barnes tried to comfort him. "You'll make a great yak herder, Sarge."

Even before the first of the mantracs had boosted down and formed up a perimeter around them, surrounding them, the troopers of Detachment Alpha and the Badger crew had grown 'faces' fatter, rounder, with narrowed eyes and extra folds here and there.

"Scatter," Winger told them. "Try to blend in. Hug those camels like family."

"Ugh," muttered Sherm Cuddy, holding his breath.

Just before the Chinese jetroops landed, Stella D'Garza slipped out of her tent and sidled up next to Winger. In a low voice, she went over the results of her comm session.

"I managed to raise Singapore Base, Colonel. It was intermittent. But they know where we are. They've pinpointed us from satlink. We're advised to stay put. Stay at this location, if possible. One of the Seismic Snatch geoplanes is coming here to pick us up."

Winger saw the first Chinese troops alighting scant meters away. "ETA?"

"About ten hours, sir."

"Swell. Get lost, Stella. Go blend in."

A short, pudgy officer-type emerged from the unit, strutting like a peacock through the villagers. His voice was sharp, guttural.

"Silence! Pai cheng yixing! Form a line!"

Grumbling and scuffing through the sand, the villagers of Bukhtara assembled themselves into crude ranks, the Detachment troopers and Badger crew mingled in with them.

The officer had a pig's face. His up-turned snout bristled with authority and a faint smudge of a moustache twitched. "Show your faces to the recognizers!"

One after another, a Chinese soldier bearing a small fist-sized device walked the line, with two mantracs trundling along after him, roughly positioning villagers when they didn't cooperate quickly enough. There were scattered grunts and curses.

Winger wedged himself between a herdsman and his daughter. When the recognizer was shone into his own face, analyzing hundreds of points of skin texture and skeletal arrangement, he held his breath, as any Normal might do. Would the bots forming his face hold up to recognizer scrutiny? Was the recognizer checking faces against some kind of database? Angels often exhibited edge effects, where their bots didn't quite track accurately. Winger half expected the thing to beep or chime or flash red or sound off loud sirens but none of that happened. He prayed that Joe Vinh's nanoderm would work. To keep steady, he concentrated on the blank mechano-skin 'face' of the mantrac, wondering what model they were using now.

After what seemed like an eternity, the soldier and his bot friend moved on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw other recognizers scanning other faces. Nothing bad had happened yet, but one alarm and the game would be up. They had weapons, concealed, but they were outnumbered and probably outgunned. Everybody just stay calm and keep your pants on....

Five minutes of this and Pig-Face seemed to relax slightly. His voice had changed and the timbre of authority had lessened.

"Comrades...thank you for your cooperation. We see no traitors or capitalist roaders here. Report any Western spies to the authorities. Dongshi zhang de rongyao! Glory to the Chairman! Long live the Revolution!"

With that, and a sharp hand signal, the Chinese troops as one lit off their suit boost and leaped back into the sky. The mantracs followed, a rippling sortie into the air, laying down a martial blast of "The East is Red", to cover their departure.

Once the flock had wheeled about to locate the next village, Winger heard loud sighs and gasps of relief.

"I was worried about Joe," Al Glance admitted, wiping sweat off his new 'face.' "Didn't know if his or your config would hold up, Colonel."

"Me too," Winger said. "Somehow we managed to fool those recogs. Gather 'round, troopers. We need to discuss strategy and our next steps."

For five minutes, Winger went over what D'Garza had found during her brief comm session. "Boundary Patrol is sending one of the diversionary ships our way. They know where we are and they're en route now."

Robles, Badger's DSO, pumped a fist. "Yes! Subterraneus percutant dure!"

Swire frowned. "Robles, stuff it! Colonel's talking...."

Winger went on. "We have to stay here and stay out of sight. I want you to make yourselves useful to the villagers and stay out of trouble. D'Garza here managed to raise Singapore Base. Word is the geoplane'll be here in ten hours—" he checked his wristpad for the time—" that means ETD is around 0600 hours tomorrow morning.

Al Glance pointed to General Liu, standing awkwardly at the back. "What about our guest?"

Winger said, "I'll deal with him in a minute. Get your gear together and make everything ready for a quick exit. Those Chinese jetroops might just decide to come back for a closer look. Any questions?"

"What's our destination, Colonel...after we leave?" The question was voiced by Sherm Cuddy but it was on everybody's mind.

Winger checked with D'Garza. "Comms were intermittent. Coupler's being jammed bad, but best we can make out, Shadow Warrior's timeline still holds. The geoplane will take us to our planned exfiltration point, just like we planned and trained for. Company, dismissed!"

The troopers scattered to their duties, while the villagers of Bukhtara resumed tending their herds. Winger motioned Joe Vinh over.

"Joe, I don't trust General Liu's halo. D'Garza gave him a sedative to keep him spacey and thinking only good thoughts but we've already battled the thing before. Tonight, while we're all sacked out, de-materialize yourself and re-config a barrier to completely surround Liu. Nothing in or out. I don't want to wake up with a big bang of halo bots on our hands."

Vinh saluted. "Will do, Colonel."

Winger went to Liu, to explain what would be happening.

"It's for the best, General. You're too valuable to risk another outbreak. Try to focus on simple, pleasant things. That should keep your halo quiet."

Liu seemed resigned. "I understand, Colonel. And I am grateful for all you've done. It's just that—"

Winger held up a hand. "Save it, General. Remember, pleasant thoughts only."

Liu smiled weakly. "I'll try to remember our last family trip to Hainan. It was to Haikou Beach. The tropical breezes, the mai-tais...."

"Yeah, that's the spirit. Good night, General."

Liu wandered off to one of the tents. Joe Vinh followed discreetly.

Winger took a long look at the desert sky. The sun was down and stars were popping out from one horizon to another. He decided to take the first watch and bunked down beside a small campfire crackling nearby. A family of herders offered him a tin of yak milk to drink but he politely declined and closed his eyes.

How many hours he had lain awake staring at stars, aircraft, satellites and the occasional meteor flash, he couldn't say. Perhaps he had drifted off into a sort of half-sleep. Intermittent but persistent tremors in the ground gradually brought him back to full consciousness.

Intrigued, he lay his cheeks flat on the dirt. No doubt, something was rumbling below ground and nearby. He wondered and sat up abruptly.

The fire was low and guttering, smoking. The yak herders—he thought they had said their name was Batzorig or something—were all asleep, nestled against their two yaks, themselves wheezing and snoring loudly.

There. Again. A definite rumble. A series of tremors. Was it a quake? A fault slipping hundreds of kilometers below them?

He was just about to get up, when a great roar enveloped the camp and all the sleepers stirred and startled themselves awake. Yaks and camels brayed and stomped hooves.

The roar was coming from beyond the camp.

Just then, Winger stood up abruptly, seeing the ground rise if it were swelling upward and about to burst. A hill was forming, an instantaneous sand dune rising, and seconds later, the top of the dune exploded outward.

Embedded in the midst of the dune, shedding sand and dirt in sheets, was the bulbous nose of a Boundary Patrol geoplane, her tracks spinning down and her borer globe collapsing in a spray of light.

Winger swallowed hard. A cheer erupted from behind him. Boundary Patrol had made good on their word.

She was called Prairie Dog. Badger crewmen raced to her side, yelling the BP rally cry like schoolchildren at recess.

"Subterraneans strike hard!"

After Dog had settled back to the ground, and the herdsmen had restrained their squawking animals, a side hatch popped open.

Johnny Winger was heartened to see a familiar face emerge in the early morning dawnlight.

"John Jellicoe, you old goat!" He raced up and embraced Dog's captain in a bear hug.

Jellicoe beamed, amazed at their surroundings. "John Winger, you look like hell. What happened to your face? You guys need a lift?"

The next few minutes were given over to greetings, back slaps, weird handshakes, name calling and a hell of a lot of jostling, shoving, pushing and shouldering. To the amazement of the villagers of Bukhtara, the crewmen and troopers mingled like long lost friends.

Jellicoe finally turned serious, eyeing the purplish skies around them. "I'm not sure how safe we are exposed like this. Get your people and gear aboard. I'd like to get underway as soon as possible. We've been tracking another geoplane on our way in. Probably Chinese."

"Or Red Harmony," said Winger. "How close?"

"Maybe ten kilometers dead astern, last we pinged them. I think the bad guys know we're here and what we're up to."

Winger raised his voice. "Troopers! Get your asses in gear. This train leaves the station in ten minutes."

All were aboard in nine.

Just before boarding Prairie Dog, Winger met up with the family he had bedded down with.

"Mr. Batzorig, I can't thank you enough. Bukhtara hospitality was over the top. We leave now." He triggered his translator module for a final greeting. "Bayartai!"

The beefy father seemed sad and hugged Winger, kissing him on both cheeks. His face wrinkled at the odd texture of an angel's outer config, then he shrugged and clapped Winger on both shoulders. "Ayuulgui ayalal, naiz mini. Safe journeys, friend."

They waved and Winger was quickly aboard the geoplane.

Moments later, Prairie Dog's borer burst into a blinding blue-white glow as her uncountable trillions of bots formed up and settled into a fiery seething globe of light.

The geoplane lowered her nose to the ground and her treads clanked to a jerky start, flinging grass and soil everywhere.

In less than two minutes, she had burrowed her way back into her element, disappearing below the sand and dirt like a furious prairie dog itself.

Inside the command deck, Jellicoe gave directions to Corporal Malkin, Dog's DSO1 (Driver/Systems Operator). Behind Malkin, BOP1 Esther Nampula pressed a few buttons, manipulating the borer that formed a huge dish-shaped nose on the geoplane's bow. Inside the borer, actuators fired to release the ANAD swarm contained there. In seconds, the outer surface of the dish was thick with nanoscale disassemblers, forming a shimmering half-globe around Dog's nose. Like a single huge blue-white headlamp, the dish and its halo of mechs formed the geoplane's working surface for subterranean operations.

"Let's go digging," Jellicoe said. "Head for that fissure and contact Ops... tell 'em we're going under."

Malkin complied. "Turning left, heading now... one three five degrees. Depth is forty-five meters, five degrees down angle."

"Borer coming on line," Nampula reported. Nampula was the Borer Operator for the ship. She scanned her instrument panel, reading swarm density, alignment and other parameters. "Bots are ready to bite—"

Prairie Dog slowed down as a fissure approached, then a high keening wail could be heard through the hull, as the borer bit into the rock. The geoplane shuddered as she decelerated. Outside the command deck, unseen by her slightly enlarged crew, Dog's nose buried itself in a shimmering blue-white fog as the borer revved up and uncountable trillions of mechs tore at the rock.

Nampula licked her lips nervously, reading her instruments. "Coming back mostly quartz and pyroxenes, with some sandstone mixed in. Bots should eat this stuff up."

The geoplane plunged into the tunnel created by her own borer, angling nose down as she bit deeper into the side of the fissure.

Dog's instrument panel showed the results of acoustic sounding, displaying rock layers on a graph, with temperature and pressure readings all around the graph. Borer status was displayed as well.

"Looking good," Nampula muttered. "Borer configured for quartz and pyroxenes...ANAD's chewing through at a rate of two point five kilometers per hour. Treads are functioning fine."

Jellicoe explained to Winger, who had found a spot on the command deck behind Sensors. "We're boring through a shield of rock the geos called the North China Craton. Big hard slab of rock, mostly sedimentary and igneous. Some granitic gneiss thrown in too."

"The lithosphere's real thin here, sir," added their Geotech Hughley. "High temps in places and lots of seismic activity. Makes it harder for us to be tracked."

"Sensors," called out Jellicoe. "Report all contacts."

Michaelis, from Badger, had taken Sensors. He studied his profiler and displays. "Single contact, dead astern, bearing one eight one. Approximately twelve kilometers."

Jellicoe smiled a hard smile. "Our old friend. BOP, push the borer to redline. Let's speed up and put some distance between us. We've got an eighteen-hour run to the exfil point and I don't want to be late."

"Borer answering to redline, Captain. Recommend we maintain this level for no more than one hour."

Jellicoe concurred. "One hour, then haul back to three-quarters." He shrugged at Winger. "Boundary Patrol skippers like to push boundaries."

"So, I see." Winger moved to the gangway hatch. "I'll go aft and check on our honored guest." He disappeared down the gangway.

General Liu Xichang was in Captain Jellicoe's bunk, surrounded by a barrier of nanobots that had been Joe Vinh. Winger entered the berth.

"General, sorry for the barrier. We just can't take a chance on your halo erupting again."

Liu lay back with his arms behind his head. "I can't blame you. Today, it's been pretty quiet. Actually, just lying here allows me to concentrate on quieter thoughts...our family trip to Hainan Island, the last dinner I had at The Imperial Duck in Beijing, that sort of thing. It is a little confined in here though."

Winger could see that. He spoke to Joe Vinh on a special frequency through his own wristpad. "Joe, Code 212, config 2230, my authority...expand perimeter by thirty percent."

In seconds, the barrier brightened slightly, faded briefly, then swelled to a larger volume. It continued to flash and pop as the atoms Vinh had grabbed were forced into a new configuration and their bonds broken and re-attached.

"That should be better, General."

Liu smiled appreciatively. "Where are we now, Colonel? I'm trying not to think about what we're actually doing, burrowing underground like rats."

"More like a prairie dog, I would think." He consulted over the ship's intercom with Rita Rono, the Geotech on the command deck. "Looks like we're cruising along about six hundred meters below the Lesser Khingan Range, eastern Manchuria."

That brought a smile to Liu. "I have relatives in Harbin...an uncle, retired miner, I believe. Perhaps not far from here." He turned serious. "Colonel, what will your Quantum Corps do with me? I have taken a very big risk."

Winger studied the General for a moment. He had a face like a bird, long nose, deep-set blue eyes, sharp cheek planes. But the cartel was a master at administering nanoderm; you could never tell what was real and what wasn't.

"First, a lot of briefings, I would think. Maybe even some memory tracing, just for comparative data. After that—" he shrugged. "Some kind of protective custody. Identity change, alterations, that sort of thing."

Liu pointed quickly to his own head. "I'd like to—you know...." He avoided mentioning the halo verbally, and even the allusion clearly produced some kind of reaction. Liu winced, sucked at a lower lip.

"You want that bugger removed, I imagine," Winger completed the thought. "I'm sure something can be worked out. We may have to do an insert...battle it out with your halo inside your head. It won't be pleasant. But Q2 wants to learn as much as they can about how these halos work. There are risks."

Liu smiled ruefully, closing his eyes, willing his mind to stay calm, away from sensitive subjects. "I took a big risk breaking out of that prison. If I can help, even if I die, it would be worth it."

Up on the command deck, Jellicoe gave directions to Malkin.

"Let's go digging," he said. "Head for that fissure up ahead and contact Ops... tell 'em we're going deep."

Malkin complied. "Turning left, heading now... one three five degrees. Depth is six fifty meters, five degrees down angle."

"Borer responding," Nampula reported. She scanned her instrument panel, reading swarm density, alignment and other parameters. "Bots are ready to bite—"

Prairie Dog slowed down as a fissure of igneous rock approached, then a high keening wail could be heard through the hull, as the borer bit into the rock. The geoplane shuddered as she decelerated. Outside the command deck, unseen by her six-person crew, Prairie Dog's nose buried itself in a shimmering blue-white fog as the borer revved up and uncountable trillions of mechs tore at the rock.

"Looking good," Malkin muttered. "Borer configured for quartz and pyroxenes...bots are chewing through at a rate of two point five kilometers per hour. Treads are functioning fine."

"She's a real hot rod...let's try some basic maneuvers," Jellicoe suggested. "Prairie Dog's never had a proper shakedown cruise."

"Aye, sir--" Malkin turned the stick to port and Prairie Dog initiated a shallow left-hand bank. The command deck listed slightly, then stabilized. For the next few minutes, first Malkin, then Jellicoe took turns putting the geoplane through a series of turns, dives and climbs. Jellicoe held his breath the whole time.

Finally, Jellicoe began to relax his grip on the stick slightly, trying to forget they were now hundreds of meters below ground.

"There's a layer of basaltic rock a few klicks south of here," he noticed on the profiler. "It's nearly a kilometer down. We should see how Prairie Dog handles there. Sergeant Michaelis, anything yet? Our friends still behind us?"

Sergeant Michaelis was the SS1, Sensors and Surveillance Technician. "Nothing new, Captain. I'm scanning all bands...EM, thermal, acoustic, quantum...some plate shifting, crustal grinding...that's about it. That and one distant target, now about fifteen kilometers dead astern."

"Very well." Jellicoe programmed a new heading into the tread control system and Malkin steered them northeast on a heading of zero eight five degrees, roughly paralleling the folded belt of ancient sedimentary rock that extended from the Lower Khingan alongside the crystalline core of the mountains. Acoustic sounding soon showed the geoplane was entering harder, denser rock layers.

"Shales," Hughley muttered. Hughley was GET1, the Geo Engineering Technician. From earlier briefings with Boundary Patrol geologists, he knew the layer was sheeted with hard slate and mica, compacted over millions of years by glaciers and the overriding mountain range. "Nothing to worry about...just sit back and enjoy the view."

Jellicoe snorted. The only view they had was of the inner pressure hull of the geoplane. Even as he watched, he imagined that he could see the compression of Prairie Dog's interior frame under the millions of tons pressing down on them.

"Sounding ahead," Michaelis reported. "Your depth is now six-eight-eight meters. Signal distortion coming back...it's probably the shale zone."

Malkin shoved the control stick forward. "I'm going a little deeper...see if we can plow through some of that quartzite."

Jellicoe was dubious. He studied the sounding profile. "Just don't push Dog too hard, okay? Let's don't press our luck on this run. We have precious cargo aboard. I'm showing discontinuities dead ahead...some kind of boundary layer, maybe."

"Inclusion zone? Maybe it's the quartzite."

Hughley shook his head. "It looks more like a fault, maybe a transform fault. The geos said there were fracture zones north of Manchuria."

Dog angled slightly downward and slowed, as the borer swarm bit into denser rock.

"Cabin temps going up," Malkin reported.

"Acknowledged. Those mechs are working overtime up front, making us a tunnel. I—"

An alarm sounded from the DPS console at the rear of the command deck. Michaelis was nearby and saw it. He swallowed hard.

"Acoustic flag, sir...some kind of swarm, for sure. Not sure whose bots I'm seeing..." his fingers flew over the board. "...but it's a large mass, headed this way, bearing two nine two...I make the range at just under four thousand meters."

Jellicoe swore under his breath. "Can you get any details, Sergeant? Any structure?" The CC1 hurried aft to the SS1's station.

Michaelis scanned his panel. "Reading high thermals...I'm applying acoustic filtering...lots of seismic noise out there. Looks like it's a bot swarm all right..."

Jellicoe sank into his seat at the main console. "Somebody must have seeded this area before...damn. What about the borer? Can we move?"

Sergeant Nampula, the BOP1, shook her head. "Negative, sir. Borer's now offline. I'm getting nothing from up front. I think the bots are dispersed. We had a containment breach and the lens itself may be damaged."

Time for Colonel Winger again, Jellicoe thought. Combat at five hundred meters underground was definitely not for the slow-witted. "Colonel Winger to the command deck, on the double."

Winger appeared in moments. "What's up, Captain?"

Jellicoe ran down the tactical situation. "Somehow, we've run into a seam of bots, like someone seeded this area beforehand. Our pursuers are still ten kilometers behind but we're facing something bad here. Can you get yourself spooled up? We've got to engage before any swarms start loosening rock around here. And keep an eye on that ship behind us. They could let loose a sonic lens burst any moment now."

Winger linked in to his assembler master bot. "I need configs for two elements and fast. First, I'm downloading a config for re-populating the borer. Basic stuff. I'll make reps to fill the borer so we can at least have maneuvering. The second element is a defensive shield...we need to be ready to meet this botswarm head on...Nampula...Hughley, any structure on this swarm?"

"Negative, sir," came both replies. Hughley scanned his sensor board. "Rock's too dense...my filters are having a hard time distinguishing swarm signals from seismic noise. I'm getting acoustics that resemble swarms with Red Harmony signatures but it's hard to be sure."

"I get the picture," Winger said. To Jellicoe, he added, "I'm forming a config for basic defensive shield. Max rate on this as well. Grabbing feedstock now...."

A shimmering blue-white fog emerged from Prairie Dog's access tunnel as Johnny Winger fissioned himself for the two configs. Overhead, the master bot of the swarm that had once been an angel named John Winger slammed atoms and built structure, thickening even as it drifted toward the hatch to the borer module. Sergeant Nampula cycled the feedport to the borer and the fog drifted on, filling the port, expanding as it replicated into the borer lens itself.

Unseen from the command deck, a second tendril of fog worked its way aft to Prairie Dog's lockout chamber on G deck. There, the defensive shieldbots would exit the ship and work their way through dense shale rock to confront the oncoming swarm.

Tense moments passed. Michaelis watched his board, noting the pressure and temperature rise inside the borer compartment.

"Just a few more minutes, Captain...borer coming up nicely, pressure now at sixty five percent...I've got some control already."

Jellicoe checked his tread controls. "Malkin, let's get powered up. Once the borer's online, I want to get Prairie Dog into position to engage that target geoplane before she blasts us with her sonic lens."

"Roger that," the DSO replied. He worked with several joysticks. "Treads working now...I'm feeling a little bite al--"

Prairie Dog shuddered and groaned as rock shifted outside. They felt the ship sliding forward, then to the left again, but the motion stopped almost as soon as it started.

"Okay--" Jellicoe pulled his own hands away from the controls. "No more tread...wait till the borer's up. Let's not make things worse. DPS, where's that swarm?"

"Best estimate is two thousand meters and still closing on our position. They can't move any faster through this rock than we can."

" Config Two exiting the ship now," came Winger's voice over the commlink. Then he checked ship's defensive status one last time. "I'm maneuvering to these coordinates--" he sent the last reported bearing from Michaelis, "--and holding that position. Then I'll form up a frontal shield...assume Config Six Six." Winger had pulled that one from the ship's archive...it would configure his own nanobotic formation into a barrier that should in theory hold off any bots working their way through the shale rock that had Prairie Dog trapped.

"Borer at ninety percent," Nampula called out.

Good enough, Jellicoe thought. "Engage the borer. Malkin, get us out of here now! DPS, get your HERF weapon and magpulser spooled up too. We may have to fight our way out of this--"

Hiro Matsui, Dog's Defense and Protective Systems specialist, complied, quickly bringing the High-Energy Radio Freq system to power. The magpulser magnetrons were already humming as well. Prairie Dog had quite a bite for any bots that came too close.

The ship shifted, slid a little, then lurched forward with a vigorous shake, like a dog let off its leash.

"Borer operating at ninety-five percent," said Nampula. She manipulated her controls, shaping the hemispherical globe of bots that were beginning to chew away at the rock layers surrounding them. "Pressure and temps nominal, configs look good, we're digging out--"

"Best forward speed, DSO," Jellicoe ordered.

Malkin shifted his stick slightly and the ship leveled off, then lurched forward and settled into a steady humming vibration. A cheer erupted on the command deck.

"We're moving!" said Hughley.

"Prairie Dog moving out smartly," Michaelis added. He steadied his stick, feeling the force of the rock pressing against the treads and the hull. "Setting cruise speed...now two point five kilometers per hour."

"Steer toward that swarm. Michaelis, give us a bearing. Colonel Winger, hold on, okay. We're maneuvering to intercept. And keep an eye on that target astern of us."

Now finally underway, Prairie Dog propelled herself on full tread and borer toward the enemy bots, less than a thousand meters to starboard. The entire engagement was taking place hundreds of meters below the Manchurian-Russian border, in a world of hard gneiss rock and quartz layers.

"SS1, what are we dealing with here...got any structure on those bots...or that bigger contact?"

Michaelis licked his lips and scanned his board. "Acoustics look like Red Harmony-type bots, sir. I've been able to run the data through filtering, screen some of the seismic stuff. EMs and thermal...too soon to tell. Best guess, Captain: we're dealing with standard bots we've seen before from this source. The larger contact is still ten thousand meters away, bearing zero eight five...probable geoplane but it's hard to tell that far away."

"That's good enough for me. DPS, tell Winger to prepare for combat launch...assume Config C-7, opposed entry."

Winger received the command over his coupler link. He was dimly aware that, aside from Jellicoe, the rest of the crew was all Boundary Patrol. Time to show these BP pukes what real quantum troopers can do.

Clinging to Prairie Dog's outer hull as the ship squeezed through the layers of shale and slate nearly a thousand meters underground, Winger responded.

"I'm ready in all respects...assuming C-7, extending effectors now, priming bond disrupters...enzymatic knife in position...just give the word, Captain and I'll tear 'em to pieces."

Al Glance, now also on the command deck, had to smile, as did others on the command circuit. De-materialized from an angel, Winger was like a little bulldog, straining at his leash. You couldn't expect Boundary Patrol slugs to understand that.

"Less than two hundred meters, Skipper," said Michaelis. "Possible aspect change on swarm mass...he may be replicating...I'm seeing enhanced returns, mass changes--"

Jellicoe checked Prairie Dog's status on her own panel. "Malkin, slow to one-third. DPS, get HERF ready. I want to blast the sonofabitch first with rf, then send Winger out."

"HERF fully charged, Captain. Pulse mode enabled." Matsui's finger hovered over the FIRE button, ready to release a thunderclap of radio-frequency energy. With any luck, the bolt would fry enough enemy bots to make Winger's job a little easier. And maybe cause that target geoplane to have second thoughts.

"Very well. Colonel Winger...you may launch when you've reached fifty percent mass."

Winger's master bot had already started replicating, grabbing atoms from local shale and slate layers, building billions and billions of daughter bots, building out the swarm.

"At fifty five percent now, Captain...I am releasing now...launching from base..."

Crawling along her hull just outside Prairie Dog's command deck, Winger toggled the quantum coupler circuit to show the view from his own nanometer scale. Troopers had long referred to this switch as "going over the waterfall."

At first, nothing made any sense. It was disorienting in the extreme, like going over the top of a roller coaster ride and your head was spinning out of control. Like standing on the beach in a driving sleet storm, with triangles and polygons and tetrahedrals and nightmarish tangled shapes blasting by your head. Gradually, your mind somehow made sense of the scene and the image settled down and stabilized. In a few seconds, you had gone from the macro world of things and substances and 3-dimensional shapes to the nanometer world of atoms and molecules and Brownian motion. Winger shook his head, focused and fiddled with the gain on the imager, trying to make some kind of sense of all the photons coming back.

To Winger's eye, maneuvering through layers of black shale rock was like flying over a field of broken gravel at an altitude of one centimeter. Calcium, sodium and magnesium molecules flitted by like trees in a hurricane. He navigated as best he could through the jungle, forcing his way through narrow crevices and corners, squeezing through tight defiles and shifting back and forth to make some kind of headway.

"EM spike dead ahead, Colonel," called out the SS1, Michaelis. "Big mass, lots of acoustics too."

Gradually, the imager settled down to a dark, staticky, grainy picture--of what? Winger squinted, leaned forward. The view slowly materialized--a dense, regular lattice of throbbing, quivering spheres.

"Crystalline structures," Hughley reported. "Looks like calcium. Maybe carbons--  
Winger was mesmerized by the perfect geometry. "Oxygens too, Sergeant." He pointed to long rows of tiny darkened blobs, marching off into the distance like a fence. "A cubical lattice, just like the micrographs. A crystalline solid--"

"Limestone's mostly calcium anyway, with some oxygens and carbons mixed in. Interlocking crystals--it's beautiful."

"And damned hard to navigate. Like a jungle...this stuff's so dense, my speed is way down. Enabling the voice link--"

Winger strained to see anything and then...there it was. Shadows drifting in and among the structurally tight crystalline lattices of silicon and calcium and iron and half a dozen over things. "Slowing to one quarter propulsor--" he told them.

Over the next few moments, the enemy swarm came into view, gradually materializing among the loose atoms and clusters that choked the lattice. It was like playing hide and seek in a dense forest.

The bots looked like a chorus line of squat cylinders, festooned with effectors and gizmos around their circumference.

"Looks like some kind of shaggy cat," muttered Michaelis. "What the hell are all those things?"

"I don't know," said Matsui, "but they're all coming this way. HERF's ready, Skipper."

"Let 'em have it!" Jellicoe said. "And cover your ears!"

"Fire in the hole!" said the DPS. He stabbed the FIRE button.

The thunderclap of rf energy stabbed out into the rock and BOOMED! back in reverberation through Prairie Dog's hull. The net effect of blasting waves of radio freq energy was to shatter the enemy formation. It also loosened some of the rock layers through which Prairie Dog was cruising.

The ship's hull shuddered, creaked and groaned. Jellicoe felt a lurch and there was a momentary sensation of sliding, then a sudden jarring stop.

Hughley, the geo tech, examined his instruments. "Side acceleration, Skipper. We're slipping--"

"Losing traction in the treads," Malkin reported. He backed off a moment, until Prairie Dog's tread bit again into the rock stratum.

"Okay," Jellicoe said, "belay any more HERF. We're shattering the rock around us. Advise Winger too...no HERF. Engage when in position. DPS, tell Winger: prepare to engage."

Winger was more than ready. The Detachment hadn't come all this way just to fold up and run off.

"I'm ready in all respects, Captain. Let me at 'em!"

Michaelis counted down the range. "Inside of fifty meters, Skipper. Big time EMs now, acoustics show massive swarm approaching, just off our starboard bow."

"Go, Colonel! Launch now!"

Outside the ship's hull, the bot master and its replicants jetted off.

"I'm now underway on full propulsor. All effectors extended, bond disrupters fully charged. Working my way through solid-phase lattice now—"

It was like fighting an enemy through heavy vine and brush, hacking your way forward even as you did battle.

"I've got him!" reported Michaelis. "He's closing fast...tell him to bear right ten degrees...I make the enemy mass centroid at ten degrees further to starboard!"

Winger received the new vector and adjusted. He decided to take a peek at the imager.

The scene was chaotic and confusing. The regular crystalline lattice was visible enough, ordered ranks of silicons and oxygens lined up like headstones in a graveyard. Something shadowy and formless moved steadily through the ranks...that was Winger himself, his own assembler bots twisting and squeezing and shimmying left and right to move through the rock strata. Further ahead, more shadows could just be made out.

The swarms collided twenty-two meters off Prairie Dog's starboard quarter.

"Engaging now...moving in!"

Even at nanoscale dimensions, close-quarters combat was still part momentum and part surprise and Johnny Winger had both. The assembler swarm quickly enveloped the bots of Red Harmony. Winger tweaked the imager, trying to get better resolution, but the view was like cats thrashing in a pool of water, all flying effectors and probes and quick flashes of disrupter fire as each side shot electron volt discharges and tore furiously at the other.

After a few minutes, Winger felt like he was bathed in sweat, even though that was physically impossible in his current config. He sent a flurry of config changes and effector commands, trying to counter what the enemy bots were doing. It quickly became evident that the enemy bots were weakest around their equatorial ring, where most of their effectors couldn't reach. The cylindrical barbell bots had multi-lobed heads, top and bottom, each covered with all manner of effectors that could easily slash, tear and slice unwary bots that approached on the wrong vector.

"That's the sweet spot--" Winger muttered. "Right in the middle...but it takes timing. You have to catch 'em when those effectors are engaged in another direction. Then, blam...you dive in and zap 'em with everything!"

The battle was a seesaw affair for many minutes. Jellicoe checked with Michaelis, the sensor tech.

"We're slowly losing mass, Skipper. I can see it in the acoustics and EMs, thermals too. Enemy bots are out-replicating us. Colonel Winger disables one, but two more show up right away...we've got to put some new configs in there."

Winger was hacking away fast as he could. "I'm trying, I'm trying...I don't see anything in the archive that--"

Just then, Prairie Dog shuddered again and a loud groan could be heard forward of the command deck. The ship shuddered and slipped and then something slammed them from the starboard side. Jellicoe grabbed a seat back just in time to keep from being thrown to the deck. Beside him, Malkin wasn't so fortunate. The DSO was flung to the floor grate and came up bleeding at the temple; his head had struck a stanchion nearby.

The geo tech shook his head. "We're losing it, Skipper!" Hughley said. "Seismic signals everywhere...strata shifting all around us! Hang on!"

Jellicoe didn't need to hear anymore. "Malkin, get cranked up...get us the hell out of here! Colonel Winger, return to the ship...we'll pick you up!."

"I understand...attempting to withdraw...I am now fully engaged with the enemy...master bot coming about...I'll have to sacrifice replicants..."

"Do it! Hold your position...we'll swing by."

At Jellicoe's command, Malkin steered for Winger's position with one hand, holding a bloody compress on his head with the other. The replicated daughter bots could be abandoned. By design, once the coupler link with the master was broken, a timer circuit ensured the replicants committed atomic seppuku and were disassembled so there was nothing for the enemy to capture.

"I've got the signal!" said Michaelis. "DSO, steer right and center on heading zero eight five."

Malkin complied and Prairie Dog was slammed again by another round of tremors. Creaks and groans echoed through the hull. "She's sluggish...we may have lost some tread, Skipper."

"Just keep going," Jellicoe told him. "We've got to get out of this stratum before Prairie Dog's crushed."

The ship shimmied and shook like a wet dog as Malkin drove them to Winger's position. The coupler link was down. The last remnants of the swarm were quickly being overwhelmed by Red Harmony bots...no sense in following that.

"At least, the borer's still operating," Nampula muttered to no one in particular. If Prairie Dog lost that, she'd be stuck but good, trapped hundreds of meters below the Khingan Mountains of Manchuria.

"Colonel Winger's bot master signal less than ten meters away," Michaelis reported, fiddling with the acoustic and EM detectors. "He may have been damaged...I'm seeing some signal dropout, intermittent spikes and drops."

"Colonel," said Jellicoe, "do you read? Make your way to the capsule port...full propulsor. We can't wait forever."

Prairie Dog had several launch and capture ports spotted around her hull. Assembler bot masters and swarms could enter and exit quickly from the ship through their own dedicated lockouts.

But there was no reply over the coupler circuit. "Looks like we've lost comms, Sensor. What's he doing out there?"

"Hard to say with all the seismic noise," Michaelis replied. "Best guess: he seems to be in motion...I'm getting acoustic returns that read like propulsor operation. And the signal's getting stronger."

"Okay, as soon as he comes aboard, we're out of here."

Word came less than a minute later, as Prairie Dog rolled and porpoised and shook from more tremors and quakes.

"Got him, Skipper!" said Michaelis. "That's the port cycling...positive ID on capture signal...and something else too...I'm getting EMs forward, looks like the Colonel...maybe part of the enemy swarm came back too."

"What are they doing forward?"

The answer came seconds later. Nampula saw an immediate drop in borer ops. "Borer swarm mass down ten per cent...I'm compensating, loading new config to make more bots—"

"Is the bot master aboard?"

"Affirmative, Skipper. I've got positive signal from inside the port. It's Winger, all right."

"Borer still losing mass!" Nampula said. The BOP1's fingers flew over her keyboard, countering the effect. "I'm trying another config—"

"Red Harmony...it has to be..." Matsui muttered, checking weapons status: HERF was charged, magpulsers were ready. "Skipper, the enemy has somehow infected Winger, rode back home with him. That has to be what happened. Remember the Colonel said he was fully engaged with the enemy. We may have some onboard...maybe even inside the borer."

Jellicoe didn't want to believe it but his tactical sense told him the DPS was probably right. The question was: now what? If Red Harmony had infected their borer with its own bots, Prairie Dog was sunk. And if Winger had unwittingly had brought enemy bots onboard...with General Liu's halo barely in containment--

He made the difficult decision. "Nampula, shut down the borer. Shut it down. And isolate that capture port. We've got to scrub Prairie Dog from bow to stern...then we can re-boot the borer."

"Sir, if I shut down—"

"Do it now!"

Nampula managed the shutdown and Prairie Dog's forward momentum died off.

For the next half hour, Prairie Dog was dead in the rock, while Sensors kept a close eye on their pursuer. Jellicoe ordered a full sweep of the geoplane, bow to stern. When Winger was finally onboard and fully reconfigged to angel Normal status, Jellicoe ordered him held in containment while a deep scan was done. It came back clear. That meant any bots left over had to be Red Harmony.

Johnny Winger led a small team from the Quantum Corps detachment, including Angel Barnes and Sherm Cuddy, moving cautiously aft from deck to deck, HERF guns charged, mag weapons enabled, hunting for loose bots. They found a few on C deck and hosed the intruders down with rf and magnetic loops, frying anything that wasn't local.

Finally, Winger pronounced Prairie Dog clean. "That was close, gentlemen," he said, as they made their way back to the command deck. "Red Harmony bots somehow coupled with me and I brought a few onboard. But I think we're sterile now."

From back aft with Winger, Jellicoe got on the ship's 1MC and ordered Nampula to get the borer up and operating again. He also conversed with Michaelis up on the command deck.

"We engaged but the bad guys were out-replicating us so we had to pull back. We were close coupled so we inadvertently brought some nasties on board but we've gotten Prairie Dog scrubbed down now and we're clean."

Michaelis said, "Wait one, sir...standby..." The link crackled for a few moments, then: "I'm getting something from my wide band acoustic sensors. Heavy seismics...the system says it's a geoplane signature...could be the other ship and she seems to be moving off...the signal's changing aspect—"

Jellicoe consulted with Winger. "SAP says it's a geoplane signature...and not one of ours. Must be the original target. It's moving off, bearing one two five...heading out right underneath the mountains, heading for the seabed. Sea of Okhotsk is just a few dozen kilometers away from our position."

Barnes rubbed her chin. "Running away? They fought us to a draw...why run now?"

Winger said, "Maybe they were just probing...testing us."

Jellicoe and Winger decided to head up the gangway and return to Dog's command deck.

Michaelis waved a hand in the air. "This is odd, Captain. I was following the signal...everything indicated a bearing of one two five, depth about a thousand meters below the seabed, but now it's shifting. She's coming up...see there?" He pointed to a set of narrow spikes on his display. "Signal's stronger...she's coming up. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's breaching...coming up above the seabed."

Jellicoe's eyes widened. "A geoplane with submarine capability? I haven't seen anything from Q2 about that."

Winger remembered the hide and seek game geoplane Mole had played with a Chinese submarine years before. "I'd have given anything to have submarine capability when we left Lions Rock. Even a little buoyancy would have been nice."

"Can you follow it, Michaelis?"

The SS1 shrugged. "Signal's getting fainter...if she's above the seabed, like a submarine, she can outrun us pretty easily."

Jellicoe swore softly. "Damn. Get every scrap of signal you can...and try to get a firm bearing. Q2 needs as much intel as we can give them."

"Bearing is definitely one two five...east by southeast, growing fainter...I'm losing it in all the seismic noise around here."

"A geoplane that's also a submarine..." Winger had to admit he was impressed. "Maybe they're headed back to the Forbidden City...what's left of it."

Jellicoe shrugged. "Why stop there? They could go anywhere. Cruise like a sub across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, then head belowground, burrow underneath the Himalayas and surface inside their old monastery...they could almost go anywhere."

"We could never catch them," Winger agreed. "A geo-sub-ship...they could show up anywhere with no warning."

Jellicoe decided to focus on the present. "Grab what you can, Sensor and then we're heading to the exfiltration point. Best time from our current location--?"

Hughley, the geotech, did some quick calculations and plotted a return course. "We can make the exfil point in about three hours, best speed."

"Very well...when Sensor has all he can get, turn Prairie Dog around and make tracks. Colonel, let's you and me go aft, grab a drink and get some chow. We need to talk."

Winger secured the Detachment's defensive suite and the two of them crawled aft through the gangway to C deck and the geoplane's tiny mess compartment. Inside, two Boundary Patrol crewmen from Badger were slurping coffee and snarfing doughnuts. For a moment, Winger and Jellicoe hung back and listened to the troopers chat.

Robles was talking, his mouth crammed with doughnut. "They never should have launched a swarm, you know, man. It was nuts...anybody could see that."

Li Ling agreed, slurping at her coffee. "All those Quantum Corps guys are just atomgrabbers and boy scouts...geeks who like to play with bots and atoms. They should leave geo ops to the adults."

"Yeah, like you and me are adults." Both crewmen chuckled at that.

Robles said, "You know, it's Quantum Corps' fault we couldn't track and follow that geoplane contact. They want to swarm the thing like a hive of bees."

"Yeah, kill the geoplane and you kill the bots."

Jellicoe and Winger came into the mess compartment and Li and Robles looked nervously at each other.

"Captain Jellicoe, Colonel Winger, uh—"

"We heard it all, guys" said Jellicoe. "No sense trying to suck up now. So you think you know how to fight off swarms better than atomgrabbers?"

"No, sir," said Robles. "It's just that—"

Winger held up a hand. "No use trying to paper over things now, Sergeant. It's evident Boundary Patrol and Quantum Corps have a lot of work to do to mesh as joint crews."

Jellicoe helped himself to the last doughnut and made sure he enjoyed it loudly, smacking his lips. Li steamed quietly, lowered her eyes and watched Robles squirm out of the corner of her eyes.

"Captain, all we were really saying is that we know geoplane ops. You've got bots and swarms. You know swarm ops. But down here, it's different. You can't just release a swarm with no thought as to how it affects the environment. Already, we set off tremors practically every time we go with ANAD. Maybe there are better ways of dealing with Red Harmony."

"No doubt," Winger admitted. "But the enemy gets a vote too. They've chosen to use swarms of nanobots to set off tremors themselves. We fight fire with fire, swarm against swarm."

"Sir, no disrespect, but maybe we have to be smarter than that. Fighting swarms with swarms underground around tectonic plates and fault boundaries is a good way to get everyone killed. We need a better way."

"I'll put your thoughts in my after-action report, "Jellicoe told them. "Now, finish up your sugar and lard break and get back to your bunks. We'll be back at the egress point in three hours."

Li and Robles were quick to squeeze their way out of the mess compartment and wriggle forward through Prairie Dog's central gangway.

When they were out of hearing, Winger looked at Jellicoe. "He's right you know...we do need a better way of combatting Red Harmony down here."

"Save it, Colonel. Save it for the debriefing. Don't you think you'd better check on the General? With all the bots whizzing around here, there's no telling what his halo's up to."

Winger was forced to agree. He hadn't fought off a swarm of Red Harmony bots outside just to have Liu's halo erupt and overcome them from behind.

Three hours running below eastern Siberia and the Sea of Okhotsk provided no more encounters with enemy geoplanes but it was DSO Malkin who kept a worried eye on Dog's treads, especially B tread. The tread banged and squealed like a wailing banshee. Finally, the entire course of tread seized up solid and the geoplane was now asymmetrical in thrust. Malkin trimmed the ship as best he could but the strain on A and C treads was growing.

Jellicoe swore under his breath. "Geo, what's our position?"

Hughley checked his sounding profiler. "Showing sedimentary layers all around, Captain. We're through the volcanic belt and subduction zone. Sea of Okhotsk directly overhead. I make our depth at three hundred meters to the seabed, then eleven hundred meters to the surface."

Jellicoe clenched his teeth and made a decision. "We've to get B tread repaired, if we can. There's supposed to be a UNIFORCE submarine on the other side of Kamchatka. Break coupler silence and try to raise her. I want to surface and effect repairs but I'd like a policeman around when we do."

While Sensors was trying to raise their escort, Jellicoe ordered Malkin to drive them up.

"Let's at least get to the seabed and take a look around."

Prairie Dog angled upward, ascending at five degrees tilt toward the seabed above them.

"R point dead ahead," announced geotech Hughley. Prairie Dog had been cruising for hours, burrowing her way beneath the seabed of the Sea of Okhotsk, through dense granitic rock layers, looking for her UNISEA escort, which had agreed to make a run into the Sea and stand guard while Dog made repairs.

Jellicoe had been up on the command deck, in a light doze, when the word came. He shook himself awake.

"Take us up, DSO. Time to enter the world of the living. We've got a submarine escort waiting topside."

"Aye, sir," replied Malkin. Prairie Dog's deck angled upward and all aboard could feel the extra strain from the borer as the bots chewed harder into the surrounding rock.

Jellicoe checked the stratigraphic display. "One hundred and ten meters. DSO, how long until she breaches?"

"At this speed, sir, about half an hour."

Jellicoe got on the 1MC and alerted all hands. "Attention! We're ascending now. Breaching in half an hour. Stow all loose gear and strap yourselves in. We'll be at eleven hundred meters sea depth when we come up. I'm expecting UNISEA will have our escort nearby."

Prairie Dog continued her ascent. When the nose of the geoplane broke through the seafloor, the ship shuddered and wallowed for a moment.

"Kill the borer!" Jellicoe ordered. Outside Prairie Dog's bow, the white-hot half-globe of borer bots collapsed in a spray of light and bubbles, as the ship eased her way on tread power alone. Moments later, the geoplane was resting in a shallow valley surrounded by steep cliffs and a seamount, some one hundred kilometers southwest of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Jellicoe studied his board. "Sensors, anything around?"

The Sensors tech, Michaelis, checked his sonar display. "Twin contacts, close aboard, Skipper, high rpms...must be small craft.

That made Jellicoe's neck hairs stand up. "Two contacts...what the--?"

But before he could finish, Michaelis had cut in. "High-speed screws, Captain...torpedo in the water...make that two torpedoes, bearing two six two, estimated range less than a thousand meters—"

Jellicoe froze at the tech's words. "Two contacts...torpedoes...what's going..." They're best hope was to re-submerge into the seabed. "DSO, BOP, can we get below the seafloor...Sensors, how long to contact?"

Michaelis' voice had shifted to a high pitch. "Estimating time to contact one from blade count...I'd say forty seconds, Captain...the second contact fifteen seconds after that."

Esther Nampula scanned the borer operator's panel. "Negative on the borer, Skipper. It'll take several minutes to re-constitute."

"We don't have several minutes. DSO, get us moving...see if we can hide behind that seamount."

"Aye, sir."

Prairie Dog lurched forward on her treads, trundling along the smooth lava plain of the Sea of Okhotsk, creeping forward at an agonizingly slow pace to sequester herself in the lee of the huge seamount. She had just made a slight turn, when a terrific explosion rocked the ship from directly above.

"Contact one!' Sensors cried out. "Less than ten meters above us—here comes contact two--!"

"All hands, rig for collision!"

A second explosion rocked Prairie Dog on her treads and whipped the geoplane nearly ninety degrees, lifting her hull right off the seafloor and spinning her slightly to port. She settled back on her side, then fought the list and re-stabilized in a slow-motion crash, skidding as her treads bit into the muck.

Debris and rock cascaded down on top of the geoplane.

"It's a mudslide!" yelled Michaelis. "Avalanche—"

A steady drumming sound beat down on them as tons of rock and mud slid downslope along the flanks of the seamount. Prairie Dog was partially buried up to her hatch seals, rocking and shuddering like a cold wet dog as the slide pounded her from above.

It was over in a minute, though the hull continued to take hits every few seconds. But Prairie Dog's hull had mercifully held. Smoke and dust grew thick on all decks. Coughing and groans filled the air as Prairie Dog's hull creaked and whined under the weight.

Jellicoe dragged himself up to his seat, helping Nampula off the deck as he did so. He tasted grit and dust in his mouth. "Damage report...now!"

All decks reported back over the next few moments. No casualties. A few bumps and bruises. One pretty severe facial laceration back on Stores deck...it was Jud Strakes, one of Badger's crew, who had been cut by falling dishes from a shelf that had come loose. Their guest, General Liu, had come through unhurt, still restrained in a MOB net created by Joe Vinh.

"How about our friends outside?" Jellicoe asked.

Michaelis checked his scopes. "Skipper, I did a signature analysis on those two contacts. They're unmanned drones...Manta-class. That's where the torpedoes came from."

Jellicoe whistled. "Manta-class...that means Chinese. Somebody knew our rendezvous point. Any more contacts?"

Michaelis studied the traces on his waterfall display. "Negative, Skipper. I'm not hearing the blade count of the Mantas now...they may have withdrawn. As for—"

He stopped in mid-sentence. They had all heard the thud of a distant explosion. Michaelis' fingers flicked buttons and switches on his scope, changing his display. He re-positioned his earphone headset, leaned forward to listen more intently. "Definitely an explosion, sir...several kilometers away, at least three thousand meters, bearing one nine zero degrees. That's gotta be a submarine...I hear bulkheads collapsing, metal bending sounds...something big's been hit."

"The Mantas?" asked Nampula. She was dabbing at a small cut on her forehead.

Jellicoe shrugged. "Who knows? I just hope it's theirs and not ours. But this neighborhood doesn't seem like a good place for Prairie Dog to hang around. Let's get out of here...BOP, get the borer back online. We'll take her down fifty meters below the seabed and circle the R point, then listen again on the other side of this valley. Our escort must be somewhere around here."

The borer operator came back, "Captain, borer does not respond. We've lost containment...detecting compartment breach...no activity present inside the lens."

Jellicoe checked Nampula's display over her shoulder. "Borer's been damaged...must have been that avalanche."

Malkin shook his head. "We can't ascend all the way to the surface. Prairie Dog's got the buoyancy of a brick. And we can't descend below the seabed. What can we do?"

Jellicoe took a deep breath. "DSO, status of our treads."

"Treads online and operable, sir. Now at idle power—"

"Sensors, any signatures from those Mantas?"

Michaelis checked. "I don't think so, sir. Hard to tell with all the rocks and mud sliding and falling. But I don't have any indications...SAP's not flagging any previous contacts."

Jellicoe looked at Johnny Winger, who had just come up the gangway. "If we can burrow out of this mudpile, we can make like a turtle and crawl along the seabed."

"To where?" Winger asked. "Don't we need an escort? We need that UNISEA sub."

"She may not be here," Jellicoe said. "I just hope she wasn't that sound we heard...the explosion. There may be more nasties around than we know about. DSO, engage treads. Let's see if we can push our way out of this mudpile."

The drone of the treads straining and whining against the tons of debris atop Prairie Dog could be heard throughout the ship. For a few moments, Jellicoe held his breath. Come on, baby...come on...come on, you can do it.

Then, the ship lurched forward and a great cheer erupted on the command deck. Malkin chopped the treads back to a steady rate and Prairie Dog wallowed and wiggled her way clear of the mudfall from the avalanche, still out of trim because of her broken B tread. Clouds of silt surrounded the ship but inside nobody could see that. Smiles and nervous chuckles broke out on the command deck.

"Speed and course, sir?"

Jellicoe looked over at Michaelis. "Any contacts now?"

Michaelis held up a hand, indicating hold on, please. He fiddled with dials on his display, re-set his headset, listening intently. "Yes, sir...very faint, but definitely there. I make one contact, bearing three one eight degrees, best range more than eight thousand meters...astern of us, sir."

"Mantas?"

"No, sir...heavier blade count...stronger return. Signature resembles a submarine...I'd say Chinese...probably Ming-class attack boat...heading this way."

"DSO, pick up our speed. Maximum rate on the treads A and C. Trim her the best you can." He frowned, rubbed his face. He was tired, dead tired, but they couldn't relax now.

"We're being stalked," Winger said what everybody was thinking. "They know we've got Liu and they'll risk anything to stop us. We can't outrun a sub. Where can we go?"

Jellicoe had already decided. "We'll try to play dead for awhile, play cat and mouse...all the way to the exfiltration point if we have to."

"Captain, that's three hundred kilometers from here."

"We can't go subterranean with B tread shot. Have you got a better idea?"

Nobody did. And so, Prairie Dog began her journey across the seafloor of the Sea of Okhotsk, heading south by southeast, away from Kamchatka, across the northern shores of the Kurile Islands, heading for the bottom of the peninsula. The exfiltration point was near the eastern shores of Kamchatka, along a remote stretch of beach and there was still no sign of the UNISEA submarine that was to have been their escort at R point.

It was a long, nerve-wracking, forty-hour trip. The submerged contact shadowing them never let up and remained five to ten thousand meters dead astern, stalking its wounded prey, waiting for just the right moment.

It was a dead-tired Jonas Michaelis who made the call. "Point R dead ahead, sir. Maybe ten minutes, if we stay on this heading."

Jellicoe startled awake in his seat and rubbed his eyes. "Report all contacts."

"I have two, sir. Contact One still astern, about eleven thousand meters. Contact Two is faint, but getting stronger, bearing zero eight seven...off our starboard bow. Blade count resembles known UNISEA submarine signatures."

Winger drifted about the aft part of the command deck, having just come forward from a visit with General Liu.

"That could be our escort, Captain. Can we signal her?"

Jellicoe was about to reply but Michaelis interrupted. "High-speed screws, Captain! Torpedo in the water...it's active and now homing, under nine thousand meters!"

"No way we can outrun a torpedo," Jellicoe said. "Sensors, try to raise the other contact. She's got to be our escort."

"She's maneuvering now, changing heading. Plot's saying she's on an intercept course with the torpedo...don't know if there's time—"

The engagement unfolded as if in slow motion for the next few minutes. Then, Michaelis whooped with joy. "Captain, Contact Two's just launched acoustic drones...countermeasures! The torpedo's turning, following the drones."

"Give me the count."

Michaelis counted down the time. "Ten seconds...eight seconds...five seconds."

Dog rocked violently in the ensuing explosion, for the drones had maneuvered themselves into a suicide impact with the torpedo.

"Second torpedo in the water, Captain! Just now...she's active and homing."

"Bearing?"

Michaelis craned forward—he couldn't believe what he was seeing on his scope. "It's from Contact Two, sir...bearing on Contact One. Twenty-five seconds to impact. Contact One is shifting position, trying to change the target angle."

All eyes were glued to the plot scope. The explosion, when it came, slammed Dog again, less violently this time. A squeal of water spewed out from a bulkhead join.

"I'll get it," Winger said. He hoisted himself on top of the DSO's console and waved his arm through the spray. Bots poured off his fingers, flickering in the stream, and quickly formed up a dense mesh, as Winger commanded the config to seal the leak with big bang-style speed. Moments later, the squeal had died off and only a dribble cascaded down on the DSO console.

Jellicoe looked on in amazement. "You're pretty handy with those bots of yours."

Winger said, "Never hurts to have an angel nearby."

At that same moment, Winger's coupler chimed in the back of his head. It turned out to be a message from the UNISEA submarine, now off their starboard bow at a thousand meters.

Dog's comm system was shot so Winger passed messages back and forth. The sender turned out to UNISEA submarine UNS Avenger.

"They're saying Contact One was a Chinese Ming-class submarine," Winger reported. "The explosion was Avenger's torpedo impacting the boat. They're asking are we okay?"

Jellicoe said, "Tell 'em we've got hull damage, stern plane damage and our B tread's seized up. Otherwise okay."

Winger sent the message. Jellicoe added something.

"Ask Avenger if the exfiltration point is near."

Winger sent the question. Avenger came back:

Exfil point has been changed. There is a Russian surface group in the area—six ships—plus two submerged contacts. We have to leave this area...it's Russian territorial waters. Can you maneuver?

Jellicoe thought about that. "Depends on where we have to go. Send this, Colonel: we can't go subterranean. Our hull won't take it and with only A and C treads, we'd just be going in circles. We're not really a submarine either...no buoyancy. The best we could do is scuttle along the seabed somehow. Where is exfil point?"

Winger and Jellicoe both waited a long minute for Avenger to reply. In that time, the two officers helped Malkin and Hughley secure some minor leaks with wedges and wrenches.

Finally, Avenger replied.

Exfil point is Attu Island, in the Aleutians. Three days or more from here. Get powered up and stay on the seabed. We'll follow and guard your stern.

After some additional messaging about course heading and speed, Jellicoe ordered the borer shut down completely. He then informed the crew and passengers via the 1MC of what Prairie Dog was about to attempt.

"This is the Captain. Listen up. We're going to be traveling along the seabed. Avenger has given us heading instructions that will take us out of the Sea Okhotsk, through the Kuril Islands and then north by northeast into the Aleutians. Attu Island is in American waters. There's a village there called Nanutuvik and UNIFORCE is hacking a landing strip out of the woods and ice above that village. We exfiltrate there and turn over our guest General Liu to Quantum Corps there." Jellicoe thought for a moment about his next words.

"This is going to be tricky, maybe a little dicey. We're not a submarine. Avenger will be with us but there are Russian and probably Chinese forces in the area. Stay alert. The trip will take at least three days. Captain, out."

With that, Jellicoe looked at Winger. "This is where the fun begins, Colonel. DSO, swing us around to heading one-one-five. Best speed on our two remaining treads. I just pray they hold up long enough to make it."

The geoplane settled to the sandy, silt-laden bottom of the sea and began clanking her way southeast. She had twelve hundred kilometers to cover...at a best speed of three kilometers an hour. Playing cat and mouse with Russian and Chinese submarines, surging forward for a few minutes, then stopping and going quiet, zigging and zagging around hills and seamounts and ravines, Prairie Dog crept cautiously toward her destination, all the while hunkering down among coral beds and lava hillocks and pods of squid and whale, trying as best she could to disguise herself in the shadows and murk of the seabed, knowing that Avenger had her back but not really feeling any better for it.

Johnny Winger did the math in his head and knew it would take days for the geoplane to make it to the new exfil point at Attu Island, if they made it all. All he could hope for, all any of the detachment could hope for, was that their geoplane would hold out, that Liu's halo would remain stable, that the treads and their air and water and supplies would hold out.

Prairie Dog was a tough little critter, Winger told himself. But another voice reminded him: there were a thousand and one things that could still go wrong and she had never been designed for duty like this.

Inuvik Beach, Attu Island

Nanutuvik, The Aleutians

April 23, 2064

1530 hours, Earth Universal Time (EUT)

It was a foggy spring afternoon on Inuvik Beach as hundreds of children, families, polar plungers and beachgoers gathered for another day of kayak races. Miles of pebble-strewn sand, laced with broken fragments of whale bone and walrus tusk and the occasional snack tent invited the indulgent to relax and enjoy the freezing waters of Inuvik Strait and follow the masts of the container ships on the horizon, maneuvering to enter the navigation channel and the harbor.

Shortly before eleven in the morning, amidst the kayaks and the jetskiers and the windsurfers, a child came splashing out of the waves, shrieking and screaming at the top of her lugs, gesturing at something in the water. Nanutuvik hadn't had a shark or a whale sighting in years, but that wasn't what had so frightened the child. As a few adults gathered around to sweep up the little girl and try to calm her, one of them pointed to a rising hump in the waves, a hundred meters off shore.

"Tsunami!" someone cried. Indeed, the building wave did at first glance resemble the surging wall of seawater that presaged an oncoming tsunami. But it wasn't a tsunami. The growing bulge in the water was only a few dozen meters broad.

"A whale!" someone else cried. There did seem to be a pronounced hump to the swell of the waves as the thing that had frightened more than one child continued to grow.

"It's a giant sea turtle...that's what it is!" another adult decided.

By now, the broad glistening back of something big was unmistakable. It breached the surface of the ocean in an explosive spray of water and steam, then rocked on its side and made steadily for the beach.

Kayakers and families scattered in terror. A Beach Patrol officer opened fire with his sidearm, to no affect. Jet skiers fled the area, arcing rooster-tails of spray behind them. Windsurfers kicked off their boards and paddled frantically for shore.

The beast plunged through the surf line and rode over the tops of hissing breakers, then drove itself up onto the beach. It looked like a giant armored beetle, maybe twenty meters in length, rounded on top, clad in some kind of metallic shielding. The beetle sported a hardened carapace on top, which now gleamed in the frosty morning air, as it shed curtains of water off its sides and back.

It wasn't a tsunami. It wasn't a whale. It wasn't a sea turtle.

It was geoplane Prairie Dog.

Suddenly, a hatch clanked open toward the rear of the beast. A head popped out, blinking hard in the wan sunshine.

"Good morning," smiled Johnny Winger.

The village of Nanatuvik snuggled in the brow of a mountain range to the north and huddled around a claw-shaped harbor that gave onto the deep swells of the ocean beyond. Just below the lower slopes of Angquk Mountain, a small rocky headland had been turned over to UNIFORCE and Quantum Corps. A small landing strip had been hacked out of the rock, and surrounded at one end by several temporary hangars, fabbed almost overnight by swarms of construction bots to receive the inevitable lifters and hyperjets.

Indeed, hyperjet Mercury had already arrived from Mesa de Oro, Mexico and sat like a bird of prey at the end of the runway, surrounded by a stern platoon of mantracs and human guards.

In Nanatuvik, Alaska, the Inuit believed their ancestors could be seen in the Northern Lights. They lived in a world filled with spirits. Long winter months of waiting for caribou herds or sitting around breathing holes, hunting seals, had given birth to stories of mysterious and sudden appearances of ghosts and fantastic creatures.

Some Inuit believed the Lights were more sinister and if you whistled at them, they would reach down to earth and cut off your head. That tale was still told to children today. Other Inuit relied on the angakkuq, or shaman, for spiritual interpretation. The nearest thing to a deity was the Old Woman, who lived beneath the sea. All the waters around Nanatuvik were believed to contain many great gods.

Johnny Winger left Prairie Dog\--the detachment having already gone ahead--and climbed the rocky slopes onto the runway, heading for a gathering milling around the stairs hanging down from Mercury. Below them, smoke from fires streamed skyward in the fading twilight, twisted into braids by winds coming off the sea, itself only a few hundred meters to the south.

He saw some familiar faces ahead in the throng of people. One of them looked like General Winston Kincade.

Must have come all the way from the Mesa to see his big prize, Winger surmised.

As he walked along the edge of the runway toward the hyperjet, he saw a man shuffling through the snow as he approached. The man was short, dark-skinned, enveloped in a heavy qaspeq parka and hood, with bone necklaces rattling around his neck as he approached. Another angel? It was hard to tell.

The man spoke something, though Winger couldn't hear over the whine of the wind. He realized the man was Nanatuvik's angakkuq, the shaman. He was gesturing at something in the sky.

Winger looked back over his shoulder. It was late afternoon, with the sun low, but already he could make out the shimmering veil of the aurora borealis hovering over the distant mountains.

The angakkuq approached Winger and stopped, placing a hand on Winger's shoulder.

"The peril of our existence lies in this fact: we eat souls. Everything we eat has a soul. All things have souls. If we hunt and fail to show respect for the souls of our prey, the spirits will avenge themselves. See in the sky...the Old Woman of the Sea is already disturbed. In the days to come, we must be careful."

With that, the shaman ambled off toward a nearby hill.

Winger watched him disappear down the rocky slope and shrugged. "Not sure what that was all about," he told himself, but he had a premonition anyway and a cold chill made him shiver. He hustled on to the crowd buzzing around Mercury.

General Kincade beamed at his approach. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Colonel. Mission accomplished. Job well done."

"Thank you, sir. We made it out without serious casualties."

"We've just moved General Liu on board Mercury. Still in isolation, I'm afraid."

"And his halo?"

Kincade turned grim. "Acting up. Liu claims it's like a vise squeezing his head. Just after he boarded, he started jerking into uncontrollable convulsions, back-snapping contortions. I had to wince at the sight. A halo is bad shit, no two ways about that. Get that bugger in your skull and sometimes, you aren't even yourself, more like a robot or a lab rat."

Winger was sympathetic. "He's been through hell. We have him in our custody, but it's like Red Harmony still has their claws in him. What do the docs say?"

Kincade motioned Winger to follow. They walked to the edge of the runway, stared out across the village to the whitecaps and foam spray that stiff winds were flinging off the ocean. Seagulls and pelicans squawked and streaked through the fog.

"They did an insert not half an hour ago, to see what was going on. I saw an acoustic view, a snapshot of Liu's brain, the limbic system to be specific. Ventral tegmentum, just above the brain stem. As the docs fiddled with the gain on the viewer, the image sharpened to a dense, hazy forest of neural tissue. Winger, you wouldn't believe it. Millions of neurons throbbing with pulses, while the nanomechs pumped the gaps with dopamine, and sucked them dry just as fast. Each cycle just sent Liu into shudders and spasms."

Winger shuddered himself.

Kincade had some kind of vid on his wristpad and he showed it to Winger. "Got this from the docs just before you showed up. Take a peek. Looks like the Indians have taken over the for." He showed the imagery, as the halo master replicant cruised inside Liu's head, through thickening dendrites, sounding ahead, and sending the pulses back to the imager. Liu was still a prisoner of his own halo, pure and simple. His brain was infested with uncountable gazillions of mechs, all working in unison, all stimulating and massaging the neural pleasure circuits, pretty much on command. Kincade chuckled at the sight.

"Pusher's dream, huh? Who needs polycuffs?"

Winger nearly choked at the sight of the man suffering. "Right. Addiction on demand. Pay as you go." His empathy melted into a scowl.

"This was the last pulse, before they put him under..."

On Kincade's wristpad display, Liu jerked as if stung, pulled at his hair, nearly throttled himself. He hung limp in the bed for a few seconds, until the anesthetic began to take effect. On the viewer, the froth inside his brain churned in dopamine soup, as the halo mechs plied their trade, working the synaptic gaps like a musical instrument. A symphony of agony played out on Liu's contorted face.

"You may have to do an insert to block that halo...and soon," Winger said.

Kincade nodded. "Soon as all of you are aboard with your gear and we're up to altitude and stable, Doc French plans to do exactly that. He may need your help...and Joe Vinh as well. After that, you're in for a full debriefing. I want every last detail of Shadow Warrior before Mercury touches down at the Mesa tomorrow."

Thinking of Liu and his contortions, Winger said, "We got what we came for but I'm not sure how much good it'll do us."

Kincade was forced to agree. "At the least, we may be able to run a memory trace, back at the Mesa. Get the rest of your people on board, Winger. Wheels up in one hour."

Winger saluted and Kincade strode off to oversee final preparations for takeoff. Mercury would make the suborbital hop across North America to the Yucatan and Mesa de Oro in less than three hours.

Johnny Winger knew he had his work cut out for him. With the qualified success of Shadow Warrior, Q2 already had enough intelligence about the cartel to make life difficult for them. They just had to find a way to use it.

Mostly he hoped they could block Red Harmony from any further expansion.

Maybe, somehow, in ways he could now only dimly perceive, he could be a key part of that.

That old shaman was right, he told himself. He would have to be careful in the days and weeks ahead.

It was a new life he was living as an angel. The rules were different here. He'd have to watch his step.

He knew UNIFORCE needed every scrap he could give them if the Normals were to have any chance of resisting Red Harmony. He hated himself for using that term but the truth was he was half angel, half-Normal himself, one foot in each world, pulled in two opposite directions at the same time. He supposed that spies and saboteurs had always dealt with that.

But he had to remind himself of something his son Liam had once said. "Being an angel is so cool. You can be anything, you can go anywhere, you can't die...."

Already he could feel the same pull Liam talked about. But he had to resist. He had to win this battle. Not only was it a battle between Normals and angels, between Quantum Corps and the Red Harmony cartel.

It was a battle with yourself. That was the hardest part. Somehow, he'd have to do what Liam and his late wife Dana and millions of others hadn't been able to do. Win that battle and save the small kernel of his own identity, his own memories that old Doc III had managed to squirrel away in a small file somewhere in his config manager, to live another day.

The Normal part of him was just a few bytes at the end of that file.

But it was the only human part left. And that was the part that had to survive.

Now it had survived. Doc III had seen to that.

Now it was time to get to work. He didn't really understand who the Shadow Man was—maybe just a figment of his imagination--but the entity had told him, in ways he couldn't really explain, that he had an important mission to perform.

Johnny Winger headed off to Nanutuvik to round up the rest of the Detachment, not knowing that in just a few months, he'd be up to his neck in menacing new threats from Red Harmony, dealing with a Deep Encounter that no one could have ever foreseen.

END
About the Author

Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He recently retired but worked for nearly 25 years for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He's been happily married for over 28 years. He's also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Pekingese dog named Chance.

For technical and background details on his series Time Jumpers, Tales of the Quantum Corps and Quantum Troopers, visit his blog Quantum Corps Times at http://qcorpstimes.blogspot.com. For details on other books in this series, visit his website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt or learn about other books by Philip Bosshardt by visiting www.smashwords.com.

To get a peek at Philip Bosshardt's notes and the backstory on how his many series were created, recent reviews, excerpts from upcoming books and general updates on the writing life, visit his blog The Word Shed at: http://thewdshed.blogspot.com.

Download the next exciting episode of Quantum Troopers Return from Smashwords.com and other fine ebook retailers. It's called 'Deep Encounter.' Available on May 8, 2020.

