Prodigal by Marc D. Giller Read Free Book Online Page B

cycles, it came up with a mathematical constant: the decay rate of heliox emissions.”
    The squad responded with muted laughter.
    “ Shit, Major,” her gunnery sergeant—“Gunny” to the rest of the team—chuckled. “That must be one hell of a crystal ball you have back at the office.”
    “Just because you’re good,” Lea said, “doesn’t mean you can’t get lucky.”
    She redirected their attention to the sat pics floating over the display table. “Our objective is in the wastelands of northern Ukraine,” she continued, while Pallas augmented the image. The profile of a small city appeared in silhouette, its dimensions extrapolated into a graphic that showed a cluster of buildings surrounding a large technical complex near the center of town. “The Old Federation abandoned the area a long time ago, for logistical and safety reasons—which means there are no military outposts anywhere nearby. Then there’s the radiation endemic to the region, which scrambles the ability of sensors to pick up electronic signatures. Put it all together, you’ve got a pretty good place to hide.”
    “What’s the target?” Gunny asked.
    Lea pointed at the shadow city, dark as the night of a new moon.
    “Chernobyl,” she said.
    Pallas used the interface to overlay a sixty-kilometer circle on the map, with the dilapidated city at the center. “Within this border is the so-called dead zone around the old reactor,” Lea explained. “This is where radiation from the Scimitar Event is still high enough to make long-term exposure dangerous. Nobody has lived within the perimeter since the mid twenty-first century, although the roads and structures within the zone are largely intact.”
    She motioned toward a satellite image of the reactor complex. Pallas zoomed in on the ancient facility, its lone cooling tower still jaggedly pointing toward the sky. Time had ravaged it even more than the nuclear accident that first earned Chernobyl its infamy. More ominous, though, were the collapsed sections and craters that remained after the bombing of the plant during Operation Scimitar—an act so heinous, it ended the wars of Consolidation.
    The Collective had launched Scimitar as a way to flush out European Union separatists, a tough band of rebels that used the area as a home base to launch attacks against the new government. Shielded by the local populace—and a minefield of radioactive fallout—the rebels assumed that Chernobyl was the last place their enemies would mount an offensive. That gamble turned out to be a colossal mistake. Official history maintained that the rebels had sabotaged the plant themselves, blowing the lid off the number four reactor in an act of mass suicide. Darker rumors suggested that the Collective was actually responsible—specifically, that they had targeted the plant to wipe out the resistance in a single, deadly stroke. To this day, nobody knew the full truth, or how many had died. The region had been uninhabitable ever since.
    “A sarcophagus of steel and concrete encases the damaged reactor,” Lea continued. “The decaying core is nominally contained inside, but over time the materials have become brittle and unstable. That’s why our mission profile calls for a remote insertion.” Pallas highlighted a section of road about twenty klicks inside the dead zone. “That’s our spot, right there. The distance minimizes the risk of disturbing the ruins and attracting attention, but it’s close enough for us to roll the rest of the way in our APC.”
    “A personnel carrier on an empty road makes a juicy target,” Tiernan said. “What about a more stealth approach through the woods?”
    Lea shook her head. “Too dangerous in the countryside. All those trees soak up radiation like a sponge. More than one hour in there and you’ll get cooked, even with protective gear. The road is the only safe way in or out.”
    Tiernan sighed. “Well, at least we won’t have to worry about electronic