Chapter 15

It took Sterling two weeks to get up to speed on the Air Force’s version of the F-22 Raptor simulator. It also took the mechanics that long to finish the cockpit changes she needed to fly it. Another week was spent in daily - or more precisely, nightly - flight drills to brush the last two months of rust off her piloting skills. Now she was landing at Randolph Air Force Base to meet with the people who were supposed to be briefing her on her new mission. <And why would they be so insistent getting a Navy pilot to do this, anyway? It must be me personally they need.>

Her flight had been timed to take off from Norfolk well after dark, and she arrived just after midnight. She was met by a car and bundled off the runway by a rather dangerous-looking pair of guards before the ground crew had even arrived. “What’s this all about, then?”

“We’ve just got orders to keep you under wraps, ma’am. The fewer people who know you’re in Texas, the better. We’re taking you to your briefing right now.”

The conference room was nearly empty – three humans were waiting for her around a desk that could easily have handled a dozen. Two were in Air Force uniforms, a colonel and a major; the third was in rather sloppy civilian attire. She recognized the civilian. “Dylan! This is your doing, is it?”

The boy nodded. “Afraid so, ma’am. We need a close look at something odd.”

The colonel cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, it’s well inside Mexican territory. Therefore the stealth aircraft - and the stealth pilot.”

The bat looked at him more closely. “I can hide myself, sir. I’m not sure I can hide an entire aircraft.”

The major chuckled. “You can, Commander. Trust me on that.”

She looked at him more closely when she heard his voice – she’d last heard it over the radio during her final round of training exercises. “Sniper?”

“In the flesh, Nightwing. Had you dead to rights twice last week, and both times you just dropped off the radar. The AWACS birds lost you, too.”

Sterling laughed. "Just briefly. And did I ever hear about that from the AWACS crew. They seemed to think I was cheating or something."

The colonel smiled. “If you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough. It was brief, but were you consciously trying to stay covert at the time? At any rate, you won’t need to for most of the trip. It might come in handy when you reach the target zone, though. Just for a few minutes could make the difference.”

Sterling glanced over at the clairvoyant again before returning her attention to the senior officer. “If you say so, sir. What am I supposed to do on this little jaunt south of the border?”

Dylan tapped at the map spread out on the table. “Right here. There’s a bubble about two miles in radius that looks like camouflage. Magical camouflage. It’s good, but it’s not perfect – whoever’s maintaining it can’t make frequent changes. It looks like normal terrain, but there’s no movement.”

“So I’m going to fly into this bubble, and see what’s inside it?”

The colonel nodded. “Exactly. While there might be some innocent explanation...”

Dylan snorted. “Not likely. Stardancer and I both think it’s Quetzalcoatl’s lair. NSA – well, Dr. Lowe, at least, she says she’s still sorting out her people – concurs and wants it checked out.”

“And avoid rubbing Mexico’s nose in their loss of control if at all possible?”

‘Sniper’ nodded. “Exactly. As chaotic as things already are down there, we don’t need it to get any worse.”

The colonel pointed at the map again and pushed a folder towards her. “We’ve got the mission brief for you here. Quick version: you’ll cross the border with your running lights out in the shadow of tomorrow’s commercial red-eye flight from Houston to Cuidad Mexico. Once you’re well inside Mexican airspace, you’ll abandon the airliner and fly along this route to avoid dense population areas. We want you to make your first pass at 3000 feet to be well inside the concealed zone, and make a second pass if you can. Depending on what happens, what’s inside there, proceed directly out to sea along this vector to refuel, or head straight back for the border along this route and make contact with the AWACS that’ll be on border patrol as soon as you can.”

Sterling nodded. “Straightforward. In and out, two photographic passes, and home again.”

The colonel nodded. “Exactly. Now, to details - your first GPS waystation point is here, at latitude 28 degrees 32 minutes 14 seconds north...”

* * * *

The first part of the mission went off without a hitch. The airliner never even suspected it had an escort half a mile back, and Sterling peeled off on her own flight path fifty miles inside the Mexican border. The occasional campesino looked up into the night, puzzled by the rumble in an empty sky, but the Mexican Air Force was nowhere to be seen. She coasted downward until she was at one thousand meters above the local ground level, following the navigation waypoints marked out by the GPS system in her flight navigation computer. Two hours after she’d crossed the border, she made her final bank to head toward the target, and opened the throttles. The Raptor’s twin Pratt & Whitney turbines whined as they climbed up to full thrust, and the aircraft shot down the valley. The edge of the bubble was marked by the computers as the next waypoint, and the countdown started as she approached, letting the plane fly itself while she concentrated on covering it with her own stealth field. “Target in ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Tar—”

Sterling swore as the cockpit electronics died and the engines cut out. Like all jets, the Raptor had a poor glide ratio, and the plane sank towards the ground. Below her the barren desert had given way to a scene out of a Hollywood nightmare. An Aztec temple in its full glory lay almost dead ahead in her flight path, torches burning to illuminate the grand avenue leading up to the stairs that mounted to the top of the pyramid. Warriors in ancient costume, both human and Changeling, stood guard on those stairs. She could feel a surprised mind below groping to find her through her concealment, and then the jet’s momentum carried her through the far side of the bubble and the electronics came back on. “Start, girl. Please start.” She’d shot through the dead zone in less than thirty seconds, and the turbines had enough momentum left to catch as she desperately stabbed at the switch. She leveled off a mere forty-five meters above the desert floor, and then hit afterburners to climb back to altitude while turning the craft’s nose back to the north. A quick attempt to reset the navigation computer led to the discovery that its active memory had not survived the shutdown, but the basic programs were intact and she set course for the nearest spot on the U.S. border.

* * * *

The feathered snake was furious. “What happened? How is it that the interloper survived his contact with the Barrier? Why is his heart not already burning on my altar?”

His chief priest cringed, cowering even lower against the cold stone floor. “We are not sure, Great One. The flying machine was not detected until after it was through the Barrier, not by any of the guards stationed outside nor by the priest on watch over the spells. Even after it was through, he found it difficult even to detect its presence, and he could not locate it accurately before it was through the far side. We hoped it would crash, but it vanished again from his perception near the ground and the guards could find no sign of it. The pilot had a Power of his own, we think.”

“This will not do. Not at all. Summon Rico to my presence immediately. The Yanquis will pay for this effrontery!”

* * * *

The encrypted radio on board the AWACS jet patrolling the Mexican-U.S. border came to life. “Nightwing to Guardian. Nightwing to Guardian.” The intelligence officer, an Air Force major, suppressed a moment of surprise as he answered.

“Guardian. Authentication Delta Romeo Fife Niner Victor. Go ahead, Nightwing.”

“Authentication Zulu Zulu One Tango November. Am returning directly to base after one pass on the target. Tell Husky that the location is correct but that machines do not work inside.”

“Roger that, Nightwing.” The major shrugged and activated the other secure radio channel he’d been issued for this flight. He shook his head as the sergeant manning the radar at the next station glanced at him. “Some of the code messages these days...”

* * * *

Lowe grumbled as her phone rang in the middle of the night. She blindly groped for it for a moment before John roused and turned on the bedside lamp. Her eyes widened as she realized that the incoming number was the White House Situation Room, and suddenly she wasn't sleepy any more. “This is the Director.”

“Ma'am, the country is under sequential pyrokinetic attacks against strategic and cultural targets. National Command Authority has ordered the activation of the paranormal defenses that we've been able to put together so far, and he's asked that you and Ms. Stardancer be present to advise him.”

“I can be there in forty-five minutes...”

“We're sending a helicopter for you, Doctor. Be ready in ten.”

* * * *

The duty officer handed her a stack of messages as she stepped out of the elevator. The President nodded to her and beckoned her over to where he was watching the status board. “Good morning, Doctor. We are under attack. Our defenses were caught flat-footed, but they seem to be firming up now. I need options. We can't count on defense forever, we need to know who is doing this.”

Lowe nodded. “Give me a moment to see what we've got here. There was a recon mission scheduled for earlier this evening to check out a possible location for Quetzalcoatl. If I remember the timing correctly, this seems to coincide with the mission. Let me check my in-box.” The message she needed was waiting, having arrived at the White House only a few minutes before she had. “Yes. The aircraft hasn't gotten back to base yet, but we have the preliminary message. A psychically camouflaged bubble in Mexico, and inside things are different. Machinery doesn't work there, among other things. Definitely sounds like the lair of an Immortal. I'll have them send along any photos that the backup mechanical film cameras may have gotten, and have them put the pilot on the phone as soon as she lands.”

“She?”

“Commander Sterling. She's an organic stealth system. I asked the Air Force to use her, on the grounds that she had the best chance to get back. I also asked our best clairvoyant to keep an eye on the site when she went in. Stardancer should have his report when she gets here.”

The President shook his head. “She persuaded me to let her stay at the Pentagon and coordinate the defense. His report should be in your in-box.”

Another phone rang, and yet another location lit up on the board. The President frowned. “The National Cathedral? Why there?”

Lowe shrugged. “If this is Quetzalcoatl, sir, he may believe that attacking a religious structure would affect our ability to defend ourselves. Stardancer's report on him indicated that he considered himself a deity... he may be assuming we have an equivalent chain of command. Or he may just be lashing out at whatever he can reach now that we're getting our defenses sorted out over critical targets.”

The President nodded. “So what can we do about this? We've got two refineries burning, as well as the tank farm for the Pacific Fleet. There have been fire attacks on civilian neighborhoods in Brownsville, Houston, and El Paso. Casualties are already in the thousands.”

“That will depend, sir. The attacks are large enough and indiscriminate enough for you to invoke our standing policy on retaliation for weapons of mass destruction if you wish. It is certainly an act of war, but like the Islamist terror groups, it has not been committed by a nation-state. The timing and the nature of the attacks points to Quetzalcoatl as the source of the attacks, but any counterattack would technically violate Mexican sovereignty.” She finished going through her messages. "Ah, here it is. Confirmed. Dylan had a few moments to peek through the shield as the Raptor penetrated it. It's Quetzalcoatl, all right."

“And Mexico is not able to exert control over this creature.”

Lowe nodded. “No sir. Which means that by international law we are justified in taking whatever unilateral action we choose.” She sniffed. “Not that the press will agree, but I've managed to lose what little respect I had for their opinions since taking this job.”

The President gave her a half-smile. “Welcome to politics, Doctor.” He straightened his shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Doctor, is it your recommendation that we use a nuclear weapon on Quetzalcoatl?”

The wolf sighed, her shoulders sagging and her ears down. “I hate to think of the side effects if we do, but ...” She tapped her computer link. “Inside the bubble, the modern world simply doesn't exist. Most of our equipment would fail when it crossed the boundary, as the Raptor's electronics did. I don't know if even a mechanical timer would set off a shell, or if the explosives would even work, and we don't have the time to experiment to find out. Setting off a nuclear weapon just outside the boundary of the non-tech zone is the only way I can think of to be sure that we won't just be giving him hostages.”

“How big?”

“Ask the Air Force, sir. Probably a half-megatonne, I'd guess, but I'm not a specialist.”

The President turned to the Air Force officer waiting by the elevator. "Major? Bring the Football here. I'm afraid we're going to need to use it."

---

The Ambassador was not at all pleased about being summoned to the White House at four in the morning. He was also more than a little worried, since the world situation had gone completely loco and he was not sure how much longer the government that had accredited him would be able to hold out.

The guards around the President made him nervous – the humans were bad enough, but the badger and the skunk standing among the dour protective detail in the President’s office offended him on a deeper level. The presence of the white wolf that the Americans had made the head of their covert security worried him more than the rest combined. “Senor Presidente. I trust there is a good reason for a summons at this hour?”

“There is, Ambassador Reyes. Have you seen the news?”

Reyes shook his head. “Not since I went to bed, senor. What has happened?”

“The United States has been deliberately attacked by a person or persons ostensibly under the authority of your country. Dr. Lowe?”

The wolf cleared her throat. “Two refineries have been fire-bombed, one in New Jersey and the second in Louisiana. Both are still burning and there has been serious loss of life. The major oil storage at San Diego Naval Yard is burning. San Antonio, Houston, Brownsville, and El Paso have been fire-bombed, with numerous civilian casualties. Here in Washington, the National Cathedral, the Lincoln Memorial, and the State Department’s Truman Office Building have been wrecked, and there was an attempt to burn the National Archives. We have traced these attempts to a location not too far from Torreon.”

Reyes sputtered. “What? This is outrageous! You accuse us? My country has not done these things!”

The President nodded. “I know, Mr. Ambassador. My advisers inform me that this is the work of a being of ancient power who has recently awakened. They also tell me that there is only one possible way to stop him before it’s too late. We will place the information we have developed on this entity at your disposal, and you may inform your government that we have acted to minimize the loss of life that will unfortunately occur.”

Reyes’ eyes narrowed. “One possible way - ? You are proposing the use of weapons of mass destruction?”

The President shook his head, sadly. “I am not -proposing- the use, Ambassador. I am informing you that we have launched a single nuclear-armed missile to deal with this threat before it becomes too powerful.” The wolf walked around the desk and approached him at the President’s gesture. He flinched back as she raised her arm, but it was only to offer him a folder. He took it gingerly, and she returned to her spot beside the President. “Show that to your President, and tell him that we acted for the greater good. Had this entity been inside US territory, our response would have been the same. We will understand if he makes public protests, but we hope for his private understanding.”

Reyes paged through the folder, and looked back up after seeing the first few photographs from the Persian Gulf. “You are serious about these things, senor? These pictures are real?”

The President nodded. “Deadly serious. The world has changed, Ambassador. We have not always been correct or completely respectful in our dealings with your nation, and you have retaliated in kind on several issues - but with the new powers in the world, we cannot afford to hold grudges. Please convey to Presidente Calderon my desire to discuss these issues with him as soon as possible, in the event that our attempt to cauterize our mutual problem doesn’t work out.”

The ambassador nodded. "This is the thing that attacked our capitol as well?" The wolf nodded, and he straightened his shoulders. "I will tell him, Senor Presidente. If these things are real... I hope we can deal with it in time."

* * * *

Quetzalcoatl watched the images dance in front of him, his anger mollified by the fires burning in several corners of this upstart ‘United States’. <Rico’s control has improved. Sufficiently, I think, to restore his rank and privileges. I should have assisted him in his use of the scrying pool to help him target before, perhaps.> Before the pyromancer had collapsed with fatigue, he had managed to set fire to two oil refineries and several buildings in their capital, and lesser agents had caused damage in several of their nearer cities. <I am surprised that they did not protect their temple. Their gods will undoubtedly be angry with them for their lack of preparation, and this can only help. Now, once he has recovered, what shall I destroy next--> He paused, his tongue flicking in and out as the image in the pool shifted to a laughing canid face. “Coyote! What do you want, troublemaker?”

Coyote bowed politely. “I just wanted to see you again, Quetzal. I’d like to say it’s been fun knowing you, but I really would hate to lie to you on this occasion.”

Quetzalcoatl hissed his distaste at the frozen backdrop to the Trickster’s image. “What are you babbling about this time? My tolerance of your antics is not unlimited, and my power returns rapidly.”

Coyote just shook his head. “Not rapidly enough this time, Quetzal. You have injured the nation that was the supreme world power before the most recent Convergence. They have taken the knowledge of machines farther than has ever happened before, and that power has not faded yet. And now they know where you are.”

The snake flicked his tongue in annoyance. “What of it? That power may still be useful in the outside world, but it is dead within my stronghold. And soon enough it will die across the planet and my word will be law from the Northern Islands to the Ice Continent. You are the only other survivor from the last cycle in these lands and you know full well you cannot stand against me.”

Coyote just chuckled. “Something like that. Though Cerrunos is here these days as well. I just wish it would happen a little more slowly, so I could savor the moment. Your stronghold is what, three miles across or so?”

Quetzalcoatl frowned at him. “The unicorn is here? No matter, I can deal with him as easily as you.” He hissed at the reference to his lair. “Why do you ask?”

The canid laughed. “Because they know how big your bubble is. And they don’t need to come inside it to deal with you.”

The snake glared. “Cease your prattling and do not dare to interfere with my scrying pool again, dog. You claim they can kill me from that distance? Best you leave my lands before my power returns completely. If you insult me again, I shall have your heart, and all your tricks will not sav–-”

Five kilometers overhead, a guidance system reached its predetermined terminal point and a circuit closed.

Coyote blinked as his campfire momentarily glowed brighter than daylight, the forest surrounding his campsite lighting up as if it were a summer noon. He smiled as his spell collapsed and the fire returned to normal, the cheerful dance of the flames and the pop and crackle of exploding sap counterpoint to the winter night around him. “Just one last trick, Quetzalcoatl,” he murmured to the darkness. “I just had to keep you from looking up.”