The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (43 page)

“I’m here with Mitchell Grinstein, whose organization has been accused of participating in this evening’s attack on a California air base, and the hijacking of two nuclear bombers,” Emery said. “Mitch, your reactions?”

Grinstein flashed a vaguely sinister smile. “Well, I only know what I see on the holo. I didn’t order any attack. But I applaud whoever did. If this speeds up the implementation of the Six Demands, I’m all for it.”

“Douglass Brown has called the charges of A.L.F. participation in this attack ‘vicious lies,’” Emery continued. “He questions whether any attack ever took place. How does this square with what you just said?”

Grinstein shrugged. “Maybe Brown knows more than I do. We didn’t order this attack, like I said. But it could be that some of our men finally got fed up with Hartmann’s fourth-rate fascism, and decided to take things into their own hands. If so, we’re behind them.”

“Then you think there
was
an attack?”

“I guess so. Hartmann had pictures. Even he wouldn’t have the gall to fake
that
.”

“And you support the attack?”

“Yeah. The Community Defenders have been saying for a long time that black people and poor people aren’t going to get justice anywhere but in the streets. This is a vindication of what we’ve been calling for all along.”

“And what about the position of the A.L.F.’s political arm?”

Another shrug. “Doug Brown and I agree on where we’re going. We don’t see eye to eye on how to get there.”

“But isn’t the Community Defense Militia subordinate to the A.L.F. political apparatus, and thus to Brown?”

“On paper. It’s different in the streets. Are the Liberty Troopers subordinate to President Hartmann when they go out on freak-hunts and black-busting expeditions? They don’t act like it. The Community Defenders are committed to the protection of the community. From thugs, Liberty Troopers, and Hartmann’s Special Suuies. And anyone else who comes along. We’re also committed to getting the Six Demands. And maybe we’d go a bit further to realize those demands than Doug and his men.”

“One last question,” said Emery. “President Hartmann, in his speech tonight, said that he intended to treat the A.L.F. like traitors.”

“Let him try,” Grinstein said, smiling. “Just let him try.”

T
HE
A
LFIE BOMBERS
had edged onto the radarmap again. They were still at 100,000 feet, doing about Mach 1.7. The Vampyre pack would be on them in minutes.

Reynolds watched for
LB
-4s, almost numbly, through his eyeslit. He was cold and drenched with his own sweat. And very scared.

The lull between battles was worse than the battles themselves, he had decided. It gave you too much time to think. And thinking was bad.

He was sad and a little sick about McKinnis. But grateful. Grateful that it hadn’t been him. Then he realized that it still might be. The night wasn’t over. The
LB
-4s were no pushovers.

And all so needless. The Alfies were vicious fools. There were other ways, better ways. They didn’t have to do this. Whatever sympathy he had ever felt for the A.L.F. had gone down in flames with McKinnis and Trainor and the others.

They deserved whatever they had coming to them. And Hartmann, he was sure, had something in mind. So many innocent people dead. And for nothing. For a grandstand, desperado stunt without a prayer of success.

That was the worst part. The plan was so ill-conceived, so hopeless. The A.L.F. couldn’t possibly win. They could shoot him down, sure. Like McKinnis. But there were other planes. They’d be found and taken out by someone. And if they got as far as Washington, there was still the city’s ring of defensive missiles to deal with. Hartmann had had trouble forcing that through Congress. But it would come in handy now.

And even if the A.L.F. got there, so what? Did they really think Hartmann would give in? No way. Not him. He’d call their bluff, and either way they lost. If they backed down, they were finished. And if they dropped the bomb, they’d get Hartmann—but at the expense of millions of their own supporters. Washington was nearly all black. Hell, it gave the A.L.F. a big plurality in ’84. What was the figure? Something like 65%, he thought. Around there, anyway.

It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be. But it was.

There was a knot in his stomach. Churning and twisting. Through the eyeslit, he saw flickers of motion against the star field. The Alfies. The goddamn Alfies. His mind turned briefly to Anne. And suddenly he hated the planes ahead of him, and the men who flew them.

“Hold your missiles till my order,” Bonetto said. “And watch it.”

The Vampyres accelerated. But the Alfies acted before the attack.

“Hey, look!” That was Dutton.

“They’re splitting.” A bass growl distorted by static; Ranczyk.

Reynolds looked at his radarmap. One of the
LB
-4s was diving sharply, picking up speed, heading for the sea of clouds that rolled below in the starlight. The other was going into a shallow climb.

“Stay together!” Bonetto again. “They want us to break up. But we’re faster. We’ll take out one and catch the other.”

They climbed. Together at first, side by side. But then one of the sleek planes began to edge ahead.

“Dutton!” Bonetto’s voice was a warning.

“I want him.” Dutton’s Vampyre screamed upward, into range of the bandit ahead. From his wings, twin missiles roared, closed.

And suddenly were not. The bomber’s lasers burned them clean from the sky.

Bonetto tried to shout another order. But it was too late. Dutton was paying no attention. He was already shrieking to his kill.

This time Reynolds saw it all.

Dutton was way out ahead of the others, still accelerating, trying to close within laser range. He was out of missiles.

But the Alfie laser had a longer range. It locked on him first.

The Vampyre seemed to writhe. Dutton went into a sharp dive, pulled up equally sharply, threw his plane from side to side. Trying to shake free of the laser. Before it killed. But the tracking computers in the
LB
-4s were faster than he could ever hope to be. The laser held steady.

And then Dutton stopped fighting. Briefly, his Vampyre closed again, climbing right up into the spear of light, its own lasers flashing out and converging. Uselessly; he was still too far away. And only for an instant.

Before the scream.

Dutton’s Vampyre never even exploded. It just seemed to go limp. Its laser died suddenly. And then it was in a spin. Flames licking at the black fuselage, burning a hole in the black velvet of night.

Reynolds didn’t watch the fall. Bonetto’s voice had snapped him from his nightmare trance. “Fire!”

He let go on three and six, and they shrieked away from him towards the Alfie. Bonetto and Ranczyk had also fired. Six missiles rose together. Two more slightly behind them. Ranczyk had let loose with a second volley.

“At him!” Bonetto shouted. “Lasers!”

Then his plane was moving away quickly, Ranczyk with him. Black shadows against a black sky, following their missiles and obscuring the stars. Reynolds hung back briefly, still scared, still hearing Dutton’s scream and seeing the fireball that was McKinnis. Then, shamed, he followed.

The bomber had unleashed its own missiles, and its lasers were locked onto the oncoming threats. There was an explosion; several missiles wiped from the air. Others burned down.

But there were two Vampyres moving in behind the missiles. And then a third behind them. Bonetto and Ranczyk had their lasers locked on the Alfie, burning at him, growing hotter and more vicious as they climbed. Briefly, the bomber’s big laser flicked down in reply. One of the Vampyres went up in a cloud of flame, a cloud that still screamed upwards at the Alfie.

Almost simultaneously, another roar. A fireball under the wing of the bomber rocked it. Its laser winked off. Power trouble? Then on again, burning at the hail of missiles. Reynolds flicked on his laser, and watched it lance out towards the chaos above. The other Vampyre—Reynolds wasn’t sure which—was firing its remaining missiles.

They were almost on top of each other. In the radarmap and the infrared they were. Only in the eyeslit was there still space between the two.

And then they were together. Joining. One big ball, orange and red and yellow, swallowing both Vampyre and prey, growing, growing, growing.

Reynolds sat almost frozen, climbing towards the swelling inferno, his laser firing ineffectively into the flames. Then he came out of it. And swerved. And dove. His laser fired once more, to wipe out a chunk of flaming debris that came spinning towards him.

He was alone. The fire fell and faded, and there was only one Vampyre, and the stars, and the blanket of cloud far below him. He had survived.

But how? He had hung back. When he should have attacked. He didn’t deserve survival. The others had earned it, with their courage. But he had hung back. He felt sick.

But he could still redeem himself. Yes. Down below, there was still one Alfie in the air. Headed towards Washington with its bombs. And only he was left to stop it.

Reynolds nosed the Vampyre into a dive, and began his grim descent.

A
FTER A BRIEF
station identification, Warren was back. With two guests and a new wrinkle. The wrinkle was the image of a large clock that silently counted down the time remaining while the newsmen talked. The guests were a retired Air Force general and a well-known political columnist.

Warren introduced them, then turned to the general. “Tonight’s attack, understandably, has frightened a lot of people,” he began. “Especially those in Washington. How likely is it that the threatened bombing will take place?”

The general snorted. “Impossible, Ted. I know what kind of air defense systems we’ve got in this country. They were designed to handle a full-fledged attack, from another nuclear power. They can certainly handle a cheap-shot move like this.”

“Then you’d say that Washington is in no danger?”

“Correct. Absolutely none. This plan was militarily hopeless from its conception. I’m shocked that even the A.L.F. would resort to such a foredoomed venture.”

Warren nodded, and swiveled to face the columnist. “How about from a political point of view? You’ve been a regular observer of President Hartmann and the Washington scene for many years, Sid. In your opinion, did this maneuver have any chances of practical political success?”

“It’s still very early,” the columnist cautioned. “But from where I sit, I’d say the A.L.F. has committed a major blunder. This attack is a political disaster—or at least it looks like one, in these early hours. Because of Washington’s large black population, I’d guess that this threat to the city will seriously undermine the A.L.F.’s support among the black community. If so, it would be a catastrophe for the party. In 1984, Douglass Brown drew more black votes than the other three candidates combined. Without these votes, the A.L.F. presidential campaign would have been a farce.”

“How will this affect other A.L.F. supporters?” Warren asked.

“That’s a key question. I’d say it would tend to drive them away from the party. Since its inception, the A.L.F. has always had a large pacifist element, which frequently clashed with the more militant Alfies who made up the Community Defense Militia. I think that tonight’s events might be the final blow for these people.”

“Who do you think would benefit from these desertions?”

The columnist shrugged. “Hard to say. There’s the possibility of a new splinter party being formed. And President Hartmann, I’m sure, will enjoy a large swing of support his way. The most likely possibility would be a revival of the Old Democratic Party, if it can regain the black voters and white radicals it has lost to the A.L.F. in recent years.”

“Thank you,” said Warren. He turned back to the camera, then glanced down briefly at the desk in front of him, checking the latest bulletins. “We’ll have more analysis later,” he said. “Right now, Continental’s man in California is at Collins Air Base, where tonight’s attack took place.”

Warren faded. The new reporter was tall and thin and young. He was standing before the main gate of the air base. Behind him was a bustling tangle of activity, several jeeps, and large numbers of police and soldiers. The spotlights were on again, and the destruction was clearly evident in the battered gatehouse and the twisted, shattered wire of the fence itself.

“Deke Hamilton here,” the man began. “Ted, Continental came out here to check whether any attack did take place, since the A.L.F. has charged that the President was lying. Well, from what I’ve seen out here, it’s the A.L.F. that’s been lying. There
was
an attack, and it was a vicious one. You can see some of the damage behind you. This is where the attackers struck hardest.”

Warren’s voice cut in. “Have you seen any bodies?”

The reporter nodded. “Yes. Many of them. Some have been horribly mangled by the fighting. More than one hundred men from the base, I’d estimate. And about fifty Alfies.”

“Have any of the attackers been identified?” Warren asked.

“Well, they’re clearly Alfies,” the reporter said. “Beards, long hair, A.L.F. uniforms. And many had literature in their pockets. Pamphlets advocating the Six Demands, that sort of thing. However, as of yet, no specific identifications have been announced. Except for the air men, of course. The base has released its own casualty lists. But not for the Alfies. As I said, many bodies are badly damaged, so identification may be difficult. I think some sort of mass burial is being planned.”

“Deke,” said Warren, “has there been any racial breakdown on the casualties?”

“Uh—none has been released. The bodies I saw were all white. But then, the black population in this area is relatively small.”

Warren started to ask another question. He never finished his sentence. Without warning, the picture from California suddenly vanished, and was replaced by chaos.

“This is Mike Petersen in Washington,” the reporter said. He was awash in a sea of struggling humanity, being pushed this way and that. All around him fights were in progress, as a squad of Special Urban Police, in blue and silver, waded through a crowd of resisting Alfies. The A.L.F. symbol was on the wall behind Petersen.