Vaughn Heppner - Invasion - Colorado

The helo lurched right. Tian was giving him the hardest target. Despite that, the others would laugh at him if his motorcycle got away.

“Get ready,” Tian said.

The battle-taxi zoomed at the chosen motorcycle, gaining on it.

“Launch,” Tian said.

Zhu released the handlebars and thrust up with his feet. It was a tricky maneuver, and he twisted his boots. They could easily tangle with the handlebars. He cleared the helo and flew forward through momentum. He also dropped. Only now did he engage the jetpack. If a flyer shot up too soon, he could cause a bad accident for both him and the others.

“Zhu,” Fighter Rank Qiang said.

“Follow me,” Zhu said, “but stay to my left.”

“Yes, Soldier Rank,” Qiang said.

Opening the throttle, Zhu flew after the leftmost motorcycle and the two partisans. He made a quick calculation and gave himself maximum thrust. That ate up jetpack-fuel at a prodigious rate. But this wasn’t an endurance flight. He had to reach the motorcycle now. It was harder flying fast, though, trickier, more prone to misjudgments.

He gained on the pair. Did they hear him? One of the riders looked back. She had long hair whipping in the wind.

It’s a woman. I don’t want to kill a woman .

The woman sitting on the back of the bike didn’t have any compunction about shooting at him. She twisted around and fired a submachine gun. It spat flame.

Zhu wasn’t worried about getting hit up here. She rode a bike over bumpy ground and he flew in the air. She’d need divine luck to shoot him down like this. He’d learned through bitter experience that the dangerous ground soldiers were those who fired deliberately while standing in one spot.

“Qiang?” Zhu asked.

“Behind you and to the left,” Qiang said.

Zhu glanced back. In the darkness, he could barely make out Qiang. The Fighter Rank had fallen far behind.

“Get high up,” Zhu said. “You’re going to watch where they go.”

“I need to give you fire support.”

“You must obey me!” Zhu shouted.

“Yes, Soldier Rank.”

Zhu glanced at his grenade launcher. It was perched on his left shoulder like a predatory eagle. He gained on the motorcycle and fired a grenade. It sailed into the darkness and exploded to their left by forty meters.

The driver never swerved. Sometimes partisans panicked, but it didn’t look like these two would. Zhu fired another grenade for good measure.

The submachine gun blazed.

Zhu grinned to himself. He zoomed lower, gaining even more speed. He was a mere thirty meters above them. He flashed over them and sped ahead.

Now the motorcycle swerved, taking a different direction.

“Talk to me, Qiang. Tell me where they’re going.” Zhu didn’t want to take his eye off the ground. This was going to get tricky. While he was this low, he didn’t want to keep looking back to see where they were.

Qiang fed him data on his targets.

Zhu made a quick judgment and roared ahead for a rough piece of ground. Eagle flyers had broken many an ankle trying this. He needed full concentration.

“Zhu, they’re heading straight for you! I think they know what you’re going to do.”

The girl must be firing the submachine gun, but Zhu wasn’t going to worry about that now. He needed concentration. You’ve trained doing this many a time. Just get it right. Get down and then worry about the combat situation .

Too many Eagle flyers tried to do two things at once. You needed to land right first. Then you could fight. Fighting while trying to land meant you would spill badly.

Zhu watched the ground rush up. He swiveled his body and applied thrust, braking himself. He dropped, braked harder, and dropped at just the right angle. Seconds later, he ran lightly across the ground. His feet blurred and he brought himself under control.

“They’re coming for you,” Qiang radioed.

“They are brave,” Zhu said.

He ran, and with a flick of his hands, he shed the jetpack. It fell, and he ran faster, lighter now. Then he dove, thudding onto the ground, skidding with his chest, using his toes to drag and brake. As he stopped, he yanked his QBZ-95 from the rack and swiveled on his stomach.

“How did you do that, Zhu?” Qiang asked. “I can’t believe it.”

Soldier Rank Zhu ignored the question. He concentrated on combat. I must fight with superior bravely against these courageous Americans .

He sighted the assault rifle, and he let the pair roar at him over the bumpy ground. The headlight wavered and the enemy gunfire quit. The woman must be switching magazines.

Deliberately, Zhu pulled the trigger. The stock shoved against his shoulder as he lay on the ground. Flame belched out of the barrel, illuminating the iron sight on the end. He began firing bursts, and in a moment, the motorcycle slid and the two Americans went down. Zhu watched. The driver stayed down, for he’d shot the partisan in the head. The woman with the flying hair got up and staggered.

Zhu hesitated. She is a woman .

The partisan looked around wildly. Zhu heard her sob. Then he shot her, and she too went down—and she stayed down.

He thought about that—killing a woman, and it emotionally drained him. He lay on the ground and began to shake. He hated this about himself. All the excitement was over and now his body betrayed him. He shook, and he hated the fact of killing a woman.

“Zhu,” Qiang radioed from the ground, from beside the motorcycle. “They’re both women. They…they look like sisters.”

Soldier Rank Zhu closed his eyes. He didn’t like partisan hunting. The Americans were brave to do what they did. Yet he had to kill them and make them stop. If he didn’t, China would wear herself out in battle.

“Are you well, Soldier Rank?” Qiang radioed. “I see you lying on the ground.”

“I’m fine,” Zhu said. He sat up, and the trembling increased. He had been scared making the landing. He was glad no one else knew that.

As he walked toward Qiang, he realized that he wasn’t cold anymore.

How much longer would the squad continue to hunt partisans? When was the war going to get hot again? He wanted to fight American soldiers, not their motorcycle-riding, submachine gun-firing women partisans. It wasn’t fair to him the Americans did that and he wanted it to stop.

It was November 2and Anna Chen’s hands trembled as she stood before her hotel mirror. I’m the wrong person for this. I’m going to make a terrible mistake and it will cost America everything. Why did he choose me?

Anna wore a modest blue dress with a matching purse and shoes. Today, she wore her dark hair down past her shoulders.

Should I put my hair up? This is awful. I don’t even know how to dress for something like this.

She stared at herself, trying to drum up a modicum of self-confidence. She was slender, some said beautiful—Anna had a hard time admitting it to herself—and she was half-Chinese in a country undergoing its worst crisis because of the Chinese. Many, many people hated her because of her ethnicity.

If I fail, people will want to hang me for treason. They’ll say I sold them out because secretly I love the invaders and want them to win . Her lips firmed. She did not love the invaders. She loved her country and she loved—she blinked at herself, shaking her head. Then she went back to inspecting the dress by sliding her hands down her hips.

Despite her rapid rise in status, she worked out daily, practicing yoga. How many months ago had she been just another night-analyst for the CIA? Seven years ago, she’d worked for President Clark. Now she worked for President Sims.

Why can’t I call him by his first name? We weren’t that formal three days ago when he held me in his arms, whispering in my ear .