But they weren’t going to arrive in time. Three months was a wildly optimistic estimate, and she didn’t think the Vipers were going to give them three months to prepare. She’d sent a steady stream of scout ships into Heinlein System; the little stealth destroyers had taken losses from enemy pickets but their efforts had formed a picture of the aliens’ activities. Heinlein-Five was gone, all defensive bases and every city burned to the ground. There were probably scattered survivors in remote areas, but for all intents and purposes the planet had been lost.
The enemy fleet was replacing the losses it’d incurred taking that system. Her scouts’ reports indicated the Vipers would be at full strength in fifteen to twenty days. For most intents and purposes, they were ready now.
They didn’t have three months. She didn’t think they had three weeks.
Nine
Trade Nexus Eleven, 165 AFC
“Isn’t this interesting?” Heather said.
“What’s interesting?” Guillermo Hamilton asked. He’d been busy poring over the latest Imperium production figures he’d gotten from a friendly Oval trader who was amenable to taking bribes and sharing information.
“The GACSS 1138 docked onto TN-11 earlier today.”
“And this is important because...?” the station chief muttered instead of bothering to do a search of the name. Heather sighed and sent him the info directly, imp-to-imp. Remfie.
“Oh,” he said after reading the data dump.
“Yeah. That ship played a role in the Days of Infamy. More specifically, in the attack on Jasper-Five. We even got some eyewitness accounts from the natives after we made a deal with the new government; they testified that the ship unloaded the components used to destroy two American corvettes. Which in turn almost cost the lives of every human on the planet.”
Including my own, but let’s not make this personal, not quite yet.
“I see. And why haven’t our good friends the Pan-Asians turned them over to us?”
“They tried. I know they usually don’t like cooperating with us, but the situation has changed.” The realities of the situation couldn’t be ignored. Like every other human nation in the galaxy, the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was at war with the Tripartite Galactic Alliance, and only the US could protect their space colonies. “They issued arrests warrants for the ship’s captain and her crew. Someone warned them, however, and they’ve gone rogue. For the past year, they’ve avoided human space, and anywhere else that will extradite them. Which unfortunately doesn’t include the O-Vehel Commonwealth. The Ovals don’t like bothering traders. Too much of their economy depends on the ‘free passage of goods and information.’ Free except for their tariffs and fees, that is.”
“Despite the fact that the ship’s actions got a number of Ovals killed on Jasper-Five?”
“A lot of human pilots are working for the Vehelians,” Heather explained. The ability to handle warp space better than any other extant species in the galaxy made human-crewed vessels rather valuable. Enterprising Earthlings could write their own ticket crewing alien ships. And many of them didn’t bother paying US taxes on their income, which made them outlaws in human space. Thousands of those rogue pilots were happy with their status as exiles, though. “The Ovals don’t want to antagonize them by turning on one of their own. On the other hand, they aren’t likely to join the Tripartite Alliance for pretty much the same reasons. They consider humans a valuable asset.”
“All of which means there isn’t much we can do,” the chief spook said. “They don’t let bounty hunters operate in their territory, either. If they won’t turn them over to us, that’s the end of the matter. I guess we can report their passage, maybe try to find out what their next port of call will be. We don’t have any other options,” he concluded, clearly intent on forgetting about the Pan-Asian rogue ship and getting back to work.
“Our legal options,” Heather said.
“Uh, oh. I smell cowboy crap. We’re not set up to do wet work, McClintock.”
“We are authorized to sanction enemy assets, as long as such operation can be safely disavowed,” she reminded her boss. ‘Sanction’ was spook jargon for killing. While the CIA was primarily in the info gathering business, it also helped deal with enemies foreign and, under certain circumstances, domestic.
“What do you propose?”
“Well, I have been gathering contacts with the local underworld.”
“Criminals,” Hamilton said with disdain. “Unreliable, dangerous. I thought you had more sense than that.”
“They have their uses. My report on those Viper fleet movements came from smugglers, in case you forgot.”
“You got lucky. Next time, they’ll probably try to sell you garbage. I don’t know, McClintock. I don’t like improvising an op on the fly. Could this be a trap?” Guillermo was trying to be the voice of reason, and was coming off like the voice of a chickenshit.
“I checked their travel records. They’ve made stops at TN-11 seven times over the last six years. They are currently delivering Lamprey foodstuffs to a couple high-rent restaurants that serve Class One delicacies at ruinous prices. Doesn’t smell fishy to me. Except maybe the food.”
“How long do we have before they’re gone?”
“They’ve paid docking fees for the next seventy-two hours, with an option to extend. Probably trying to negotiate for new cargo. So figure we’ve got two, maybe three days minimum.”
“Not exactly a surfeit of time. What do you propose to do? We can’t bring the Marine security detachment into this. We’re not going to instigate an act of war against a neutral just to get some pirates.”
“I know,” she said, trying not to let her impatience show. Yes, this was personal, but it also fulfilled their professional duties. Traitors to humanity couldn’t be allowed to live. “Like I said, I’ve made some useful local contacts.”
“Again with the thugs,” Guillermo said. He preferred to work with high-class criminals, like corrupt government officials who could be bribed and blackmailed. He didn’t quite get that regular criminals could provide a great deal of support. Too many CIA operatives came from the wealthier and more ‘civilized’ sections of the US, on Earth or off, places where getting your hands dirty or bloody just wasn’t done. Heather might have been raised in that community, but contact with the real world had changed her. Maybe Guillermo would get it too, eventually.
“I can handle it, Gill. I’ll take care of it, and if anything goes wrong, you can disavow me. If everything works out, you get the credit. I don’t care about credit. I just want to get those bastards.”
Hamilton grudgingly let her have her way. In the end, she guessed the chance of getting rid of her was as much an incentive for him as pulling off a major covert operation. The two intelligence officers hadn’t warmed up to each other. “All right. Let’s keep it off the books. Completely off. Can’t leave any sort of trail on this one.”
By which he meant that he didn’t want CIA funds to show up anywhere near the operation. They wouldn’t. Heather had been accumulating a decent stash of ‘unofficial’ funds during the past six months. She’d used her own money to start with, and made it grow via a variety of investments, some legal, some somewhat questionable. She’d learned from her time in Kirosha that relying on her official budget could leave you high and dry in the field. Sometimes you needed to be able to pony up some cash up front and there wasn’t time for some bean counter up the chain of command to approve the expense. And she’d discovered she had a not inconsiderable talent in business. When or if she retired from public service, she’d probably be able to supplement her pension rather handsomely.
Her family would be proud, the day she got a ‘real’ job. Assuming she lived that long.
“I’ve got it covered,” she said. If the op went well, he’d make everything ‘official’ and reimburse her for the expenses, along with getting all the credit. That was fine by her.
She had a score to settle.
* * *<
br />
“How about a discount, jingjing girl?” the Korean spacer said for the third time as he allowed the hooker to drag him into an alleyway between two dive bars in the low-rent section of the station, so low-rent you needed to bring your own oxygen along unless you came from a very light-atmosphere planet. He and his buddy – you didn’t wander the more disreputable parts of TN-11 on your own – were drunk, stoned, and ready to play. Their facemasks and inebriation slurred their words as they shared a joke and laughed.
The ‘girl’ – a member of the Blue Man species who might pass for human in poor lightning and resembled a human female only if the beholder was legally blind – rocked her head in a circular motion that was her culture’s equivalent of a shrug.
“’Oo pay, I pop.” She extended one of her four thick fingers towards the leader of the pair. “Wee nego-tee-ate,” she finished in atrociously-accented English. Neither party had sophisticated imp translator apps, so they were relying in the one language they had in common, more or less. Fortunately, both of their limited vocabularies specialized in this sort of transaction.
“Yah, yah, negotiate,” the designated haggler said. “Good girl. You pop me good, okay? Then mah friend. Ten Gee-Cees.”
“Pop ‘oo good, ‘kay. Freen pop, thees many extra.” She stuck out three fingers. Blue Men – or Women – weren’t exactly sexually compatible with humans, but certain body parts would do well enough as field expedients. Thirteen Galactic Credit Units was a fairly reasonable price for a twosome, even though it probably represented several months of banked pay for the Pan-Asian spacers.
“Good. Thirteen Gee-Cees. Less whining, more suckey-fuckey, okay?”
And they say romance is dead, Heather thought as she watched the unfolding scene from her hiding spot at the end of the alley. Luring the unfortunate Gack crewmembers into the ambush had been child’s play. As soon as the hooker led them out of sight of the main passageway, she and the rest of her ad hoc team pulled aside the stealth blankets they’d used to conceal their presence. Her imp jammed the Pan-Asians’ commo systems, ensuring they couldn’t call for help. The two spacers were surrounded by hostile aliens before they realized their planned sex party had turned into something completely different.
The Boothan Clan was that rarity in galactic criminal circles, a multi-species organization. Most underworld gangs stuck to a single species, or even an extended family within that species, on the grounds that outsiders were intrinsically untrustworthy. Major trade junctions like TN-11 were the most likely places to find exception to the rule. The clan members’ loyalty was insured through fear; betraying the Boothan was punishable by death, but only after several weeks of methodical torture and mutilation.
Four figures rose from hiding and blocked both ends of the alley. Two were Blue Men like the prostitute they’d hired as bait, vaguely humanoid, their hairless, narrow bodies covered with slick-looking skin that ranged from sky blue to deep indigo in color. Their yellow eyes seemed to glow in the poor lightning of the alley. One was a Crab, more like a scorpion analogue really: eight legs, two arms with skeletal hands at their end, and two fighting pincers. The last one was a Class Three alien of an unknown species, his physical features completely covered up by a metallic environmental suit reminiscent of medieval plate armor, if a suit of armor had been designed to fit something shaped like a fireplug with three stubby legs and three long arms.
The alien gangsters were armed with a variety of death-dealing equipment, from laser pistols and beamers to the Class Three ET’s sidearm, which looked like a hose at the end of a backpack container and which Heather had been told could spit out a combination of liquid nitrogen balloons and self-propelled solid darts. The Vehelian authorities allowed weapons to be carried on their trading posts – force fields minimized danger to the facility as a whole – but their unlawful use was harshly punished. This gang of thugs didn’t seem to care. Of course, this area had next to no police presence and minimal and easily-bypassed surveillance systems.
“Wha…? Wha…?” the chatty Korean spacer said.
“Be quiet or die,” Heather said in Mandarin, the common language of the GACS. Even the Russian members of the loose confederation had been forced to learn to speak it in the aftermath of First Contact.
“Who are you?” the less talkative one blurted out in the same language.
Heather made a curt head gesture. The armored three-legged fireplug cut loose with his weapon. The center of the Korean spacer’s chest was frozen solid by a splash of liquid nitrogen; a fraction of a second later, a kinetic projectile shattered the frozen flesh, leaving behind a hole large enough to accommodate a human head. The dead Pan-Asian fell to ground without making another sound.
“Be quiet or die, I said,” Heather repeated. The surviving spacer kept his mouth shut. His wide eyes regarded the motley group with growing horror. He glanced at the prostitute, who impassively met his stare, and then desperately looked about for a way out. He needn’t have bothered. There was no hope or mercy to be found anywhere on that alley.
It took a few seconds to break into the living crewman’s third-rate implant system and access his personal records, which included a moment-by-moment video feed of his entire life, beginning with his implantation at age fifteen in Ryanggang Province and ending forty years later here, in a back alley on a far-off space station. The records had all the information Heather needed. Imps locked up when their wearer died, which made hacking into them more difficult and time-consuming. That little fact had earned the surviving Korean a few extra seconds to live. As soon as she got what she needed, his time was up.
She found that having people killed in cold blood was even more unpleasant than committing murder in the heat of the moment.
Another head gesture. Another blast of nitrogen and a kinetic coup-de-grace.
Unpleasant, but part of the job.
* * *
Harry Routh spent his last moments bitching about his life.
Life aboard the GACSS-1138 had never been pleasant, and it had only gotten worse. The freighter’s owners and operators were a Korean family who had sunk their life savings on the small and run-down vessel and aimed to get their money’s worth by any means necessary. To that end, they would do business with anybody, and skimp on such luxuries as proper life support and spare parts.
The Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was a funny country. Harry still barely understood it, even after working in a GACS-flagged ship for what felt like a lifetime. The loose coalition of Russians, Chinese and assorted Eastern nations had come together after First Contact had largely depopulated their entire hemisphere. The resulting coalition of semi-independent governments generally cooperated with each other, especially when dealing with outsiders. China and Russia dominated the Sphere and were in fairly good shape. Harry was in a Korean vessel, unfortunately. Korea had been holding the short end of the stick ever since aliens had wiped out most of the South and left the survivors at the mercy of a gaggle of low-level northern officers who’d been lucky enough not to be in Pyongyang when it went up in flames. The 1138 was one of maybe a dozen Korean-flagged merchantmen, and Harry had been terrified to learn it was considered one of the better vessels of the bunch.
Captain Minh, the head of the family as well as of the ship, enforced discipline on his first- and second-cousins with gleeful brutality, and only the fact that his crew had literally nowhere else to go kept the desertion rate to a minimum. Harry had ended up as first mate of that floating disaster through a series of extremely unfortunate events. Like everyone else in the freighter, he was out of choices and out of luck. Except that, as an outsider, kept alive only because he knew how to keep the ship’s systems running, he had to take crap from everyone all the time.
The previous year, he’d put another nail on his coffin by participating in a Lamprey covert operation against the US. He’d never planned to return to American space, but now even the Gacks wouldn’t have him anymore. If the Pan-Asian authorities caught him, or an
ybody on the crew for that matter, they’d send him to the US for a short trial and a quick execution. As the only American in the crew, he’d earned the dubious honor of having the highest price on his head. Only the fact that the rest of the GACSS-1138 spacers were in the same boat, pun intended had kept them from selling him out. The ship was doomed to spend its days wandering from one alien port to the next.
Their stay on TN-11 had been typical of his life on the Korean ship. Harry never got any shore leave and was stuck on deck the entire time. Then again, maybe he’d been lucky; two crew members hadn’t come back. Desertion was a possibility, but Harry’s guess was that they’d fallen afoul of one of the local criminal gangs that infested the shittier portions of the space station. The captain hadn’t even bothered reporting the disappearances to the authorities. You never wanted to attract the local cops’ attention, not when you sometimes engaged in activities they might not approve of.
Captain Minh had made a half-hearted attempt to find replacements before leaving, but no human in TN-11 would even consider joining the outlaw ship, and aliens were out of the question. It wasn’t because of the life support issues involved in having another species aboard, although that didn’t help. Minh and his crew just couldn’t abide the thought of having nonhumans working and living with them. They were disgusted enough by the presence of an American, although to be fair they would have been just as revolted by a Russian or Thai. Koreans didn’t play well with others, probably because they’d been bombed back to the Stone Age during First Contact and many of the survivors had spent years on an enforced diet of tree bark and long pig. The resulting culture was extremely hostile towards outsiders. Minh’s allowing Harry to stay alive on his ship made him a paragon of tolerance.
With no replacements available, they’d be leaving with a short crew. Which meant someone had to pick up the slack, and as usual Harry got the short end of the stick. On top of getting no leave time, Captain Minh had him supervising the loading of their next shipment. Their last delivery had consisted of a thousand tons of Class One foodstuffs, and that had been a mess. The 1138’s new cargo was not biological, thankfully: electronic components, fairly valuable stuff, and the shipping fees for delivering it to a Crab colony would keep the little merchantman running for a good while. On the down side, the trip would take about ninety warp-hours spread over five weeks, and Harry would be busting his ass for most of it.
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 47
