They didn’t pay her enough for this.
* * *
By the time the red dwarf that served as Haven-Two’s sun rose over the horizon, Heather was done collating her report and hiding it inside a virtual reality program, the vital data sequestered between multimedia code lines and impossible to find without the proper decryption codes. She wasn’t looking forward to putting in a day’s work under her cover identity after a sleepless night, but those were the breaks. At least the news was mostly good for a change. The ITL had decided that remaining neutral was the best course of action, given the US victories at Parthenon and Hades systems, and the Vipers dropping out of the Alliance. Even better, the O-Vehel Federation was apparently regretting its own shift in alliances and had reached out to the ITL to serve as possible intermediaries to work out some sort of deal with the US. The League had refused to get involved, but the fact the Ovals were trying to be friends again was reassuring.
Suppressing a yawn and having her medical implants send another shot of stimulants into her bloodstream, Heather got dressed for work. She was on her way to breakfast when she ran into her titular boss at UPS, a ‘rat she’d grown to dislike almost from the start.
The man looked even unhappier than usual. “Don’t even bother with breakfast,” he said as soon as he laid eyes on her. “You’ve been recalled to Earth.”
“What?”
“Your lords and masters beckon, whoever they are. You’re on a charter ship headed Sol System. It leaves in fifteen minutes. I figure you can pack up your stuff quickly.”
Shit. Nobody at UPS knew who she really was. Until now.
“You’re fired, by the way.”
New Washington, Earth, 166 AFC
She was about ready to start dropping bodies by the time she arrived to the capital. It took a lot of self-restraint to merely walk into the office of the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service. The DD, a ninety-year old woman with decades of field experience, looked positively worried when Heather entered. Something about her body language betrayed her mood, or perhaps just the glint in her eyes.
“You blew my cover,” Heather said.
“Agent McClintock, I can assure you all precautions…”
“UPS doesn’t reassign a junior executive in the middle of a trade mission, let alone send her straight to Earth, damn the expenses, within an hour of getting the word. My pretend boss is a dim bulb, but he knew something was up, and by now so do the Int-Trads. Which means they sold the information in the open market in the time it took me to get back here. Six months of altering my biometrics and creating a full persona just got flushed down the toilet. I would like an explanation.”
“Your briefing is scheduled for tomorrow morning,” Deputy NCS Director Graciela Pinto said, her expression changing from worry to anger. “But since you are here, Senior Field Agent McClintock, sit the hell down and I’ll brief you here and now. I might even forget this breach in protocol, in consideration of your track record.”
Heather sat down.
“First of all, I’m sorry we pulled you out so suddenly, and in a way that burned your cover. That decision was not made at the Agency. In fact, it was the result of a cluster-fuck emanating from the State Department, with the strong endorsement of the War Department. The boss decided that playing ball was more important than your ongoing mission. I think you’ll agree, once you know the reasons behind the move.”
This better be good, Heather thought, but retained enough common sense to keep the thought to herself. Barging into the DNCS’ office had taken her to the edge of career suicide; any further steps would carry her over it.
She was still pissed off to no end. It wasn’t just the cover identity, which had taken a great deal of work to establish, but the fact that all the regular people she’d associated with would end up in some alien database, listed as possible intelligence officers. At best, it meant they would be subject to surveillance whenever they left the US, and possibly even within its borders. At worst, it made them likely targets of counterintelligence operations: blackmail, extortion, and bribery attempts were all possible, simply because they’d worked with a known CIA asset. She didn’t mind putting her own life on the line, but the thought of innocent civilians becoming targets, just because some ‘rat had decided they needed her here and now, infuriated her.
“What do you know about the Tah-Leen species?” Pinto asked her. “From Xanadu?”
Heather had to think of the answer. Xanadu… “The warp nexus?”
The Deputy Director nodded. “One of the largest ones in the known galaxy. Forty-three ley lines connecting several Starfarer polities. Including both remaining members of the Galactic Alliance, as well as the US and the Puppies.”
“Right. That would make it a major war front. Except the locals don’t allow military traffic through the system.”
“Yes. For now. You’ll get the details in the briefing package. I’m sending it to you now, since you decided to so kindly drop by…”
“My apologies,” Heather said, mostly meaning it.
“We’ll let that go for now. Just don’t make a habit of it.”
“I assure you I won’t.”
“You’ve got a reputation, McClintock. Very effective agent, what the Navy likes to call ‘a good man in a storm,’ but you’re also known as a maverick, going your own way, often against protocol or even standing orders. You’ve managed to piss off a lot of people at the Agency. Success can expiate a lot of sins, but politics will eventually do you in, no matter how good you are. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Very well. In any case, Xanadu System’s main feature is a quark star, very rare out in the spiral arm of the galaxy, and very hard to live with, even though its massive gravity field is a breeding ground for warp valleys. The Tah-Leen, the little remnant of their civilization that still survives, are very old and extremely advanced. Their species was on the verge of Transcendence when something went wrong and caused their downfall. Xanadu is the only place they still inhabit, and for some reason they never leave its confines. The system is impregnable. Every fleet that has tried to invade it has been obliterated. No vessel can enter Xanadu without the permission of the Tah-Leen, and visitors can only leave after they pay the rather hefty tolls they charge for the use of their ley line network.”
While the Deputy Director spoke, Heather mentally skimmed through the briefing package. Images of Xanadu itself flashed before her eyes: the quark star was hardly visible, being only slightly below the density threshold that would turn it into a black hole. There were no planets, only a network of docking stations for transshipment purposes, and a central habitat. The latter looked like gigantic jewel, gorgeous and colorful, its crystalline shape like nothing she’d ever seen built for the purposes of space trade. The actual name of the system, roughly translated, meant ‘seasonal paradisiac retreat for the most special.’ Xanadu managed to encapsulate the meaning adequately, she thought. The Woogle article enclosed in the package translated the species name, ‘Tah-Leen’ as ‘Celebration of Special Uniqueness’ which was quite a mouthful for two whole syllables. Alternative translations included such names as the ‘Multitude of the Unique,’ the ‘Diverse Individuals,’ and the ‘True Individuals.’ Heather decided to add a new one: ‘Special Snowflakes.’ Or simply the Snowflakes. She thought it might catch on.
Multimedia depictions of the aliens themselves were not available.
Guess they are so special and unique that they don’t like having their picture taken. Or so hideous nobody can stand the sight of them. She’d have to look into that, later.
“Currently, only peaceful trading ships are allowed to use their warp network. When the war began, the Tah-Leen placed a traffic embargo on all combatants. Since that was a major shipping lane between between us and the Hrauwah, it hurt the US worst of all.”
That made Xanadu rather important. The Hrauwah Kingdom – better known as the Puppies – were still reluctant to join in th
e current galactic conflict, but they’d been steadily increasing their shipments of supplies, weapons and even warships crewed by ‘volunteers.’ The Ovals’ betrayal had further eliminated the number of trade routes available. To avoid coming close to enemy-controlled areas, deliveries now had to go on a rather roundabout trip, which meant it took anywhere between a month and six weeks to take goods from the major Puppy industrial centers and bring them to the US.
“We’ve been trying to get the Tah-Leen to rescind their embargo, to no avail. Until now.”
“What changed?”
“Apparently, their Hierophant – his full title is Keeper and Transmitter of All Sacred and Holy Revelations – has become interested in humanity. Specifically, he recently got ahold of a little Nullywood production about the Kirosha siege, and now he and his fellow Tah-Leen are just dying to meet you and the other ‘heroes’ involved.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
Heather found that hard to believe. Sure, the siege of the legations had been a pretty dramatic affair, but even recent galactic history – say, the last five thousand years or so – was full of similar tales of heroism and drama. She was as much a believer in American exceptionalism as the next flag-waving ‘muricaner, but she couldn’t imagine any reason why a hundred-thousand-year old culture – she double-checked the figure on the Woogle article; she hadn’t known that any living species had been around for that long – would be all that impressed by what she, a platoon of Marines and about a thousand odds and sods had accomplished. There had to be a catch.
“They are also impressed by our status as ‘warp demons.’ It appears they have records of the last time a warp-adept species roamed the galaxy, although it happened before even their time. The Imperium has been all but begging to get a look at those records and gotten nowhere.”
“So what’s the deal? We drop by, they get to shake our hands and ask for our autographs, and then they lift the embargo?”
“Then they decide if we’re worthy of their assistance. Which at the least would mean continuing to deny access to our enemies while lifting the embargo on the US. If they let military traffic through – a big if, admittedly – we could actually mount an offensive into the heart of Lamprey territory. The Imperium worlds linked to Xanadu are minor possessions at the end of long warp chains, so it wouldn’t be as big a deal for them. But the Lampreys would be screwed if we can deploy a fleet that way. Most of their forces are concentrated on the opposite side of their empire, preparing for the next big offensive against us and the Wyrms.”
“That’s a lot. Sounds way too good to be true,” Heather said.
“Well, they still have to decide if we’re worthy, whatever that means. God only knows if the Marines will impress or terrify them. We know next to nothing about their culture; the Tah-Leen are one of the most secretive civilizations in the galaxy. So nobody is sure what to expect. The Secretary of State her own damn self is going. That tells you how seriously they’re taking all of this.”
“What happens if they decide we’re not worthy?”
“Best case, the status quo remains in place. Worst case, the Alliance gets their embargo lifted and we have to shift forces to defend that border. Third Fleet is arrayed on that sector; mostly older ships, and currently last in line to get any extra goodies like carrier vessels. It would take the enemy some time to exploit that front, but military and civilian losses are likely to be heavy if – when – they do.”
Heather knew what those innocuous words really meant: ships torn apart and consumed by fire or left open to the cold vacuum of space, cities burned into slag, entire lifetimes of work lost in a few instants, and hundreds of millions dead. Preventing that was well worth risking the lives of the ‘heroes of Kirosha’ or all twenty-five hundred survivors for that matter.
“So who’s going on this diplomatic mission?”
Peter, I would imagine, she thought. That’d be nice.
“You, of course, and as many of the original Embassy staff as we can round up to go. The Marine captain – your Marine captain, yes,” Pinto added with a smirk. You couldn’t keep a relationship secret at Spy Central. “His entire company, including the platoon he had at Jasper-Five. The military contractors are all on a long-term assignment, and they asked for too much money to cover their contract-breaking penalties, so they aren’t going. I don’t think the Tah-Leen will care, though. The mercenaries were cut out of the movie, so the aliens may not even know they were there.”
“That piece of crap,” Heather said. The multimedia flick had largely dismissed her contribution to the fight. The handsome Marine captain’s love interest, played by no other than Heather Spade, had been portrayed as an ineffectual bimbo that the manly man had rescued from the mean aliens in three different scenes. Rat bastards. She’d played the interactive version just for the pleasure of murdering the happy couple in as many ways as she could devise.
Pinto chuckled. “Yes, it wasn’t really flattering to you, was it? In all fairness, the Agency scrubbed your actions from most records. Got to safeguard ways and means, you know.”
“I know.”
Spies didn’t play the Great Game for the glory. If people knew who you were, you had already lost. That was why getting burned at UPS had driven her into a frenzy.
Even her family thought she’d spent her time on Jasper-Five cowering in some sub-basement in the embassy building while Marines did all the fighting and dying. If they’d known she’d been in a trench, a gun in her hands while she fended off homicidal maniacs as they came over the wire, they’d probably drop dead on the spot. Both from shock and outrage: that sort of carnage was beneath the McClintocks. If they had to do any fighting at all, her family was supposed to do so from a proper naval vessel. Hand to hand fighting was for lower life forms.
“All in all, the guest list is about three hundred names long.”
“I see.”
Heather’s eyes widened when some of Pinto’s words sunk in.
“The original Embassy staff? Surely that doesn’t include the Ambassador. Or does it?”
Pinto’s grimace was all the answer she needed before the Deputy Director spoke. “I’m afraid he is going. Didn’t take much convincing, since he’d spent a very tough year in a penal colony on Venus. I don’t think you’ll recognize him.”
“That worthless bastard had it coming. What is he getting for his cooperation?”
“A reduced sentence. Time served, basically.”
Former ambassador Javier Llewellyn had gotten his position through his family connections, much like everything else in his life. The situation at Jasper-Five had been well above his competency level: the man had managed to insult the Kirosha Queen and issue an ultimatum that precipitated the attack on the embassy. That would have been bad enough, but he’d compounded his mistake by trying to surrender to the aliens, despite the fact that he’d witnessed their penchant for judicial torture with his own eyes. Only the last-second intervention of the Regional Security Officer had prevented him from issuing a suicidal order to stand down. That combination of ineptness and cowardice – ordering the surrender of American territory without the express approval of the highest-ranking military officer on the scene was considered an act of treason – had earned him a lengthy sentence in a labor camp on Venus, currently in its hundredth year of a five-century-long terraforming project. Most of the work was being done by convicts because the planet was still a pretty good facsimile of Hell. It was the next best thing to a death sentence.
To hear that the weasel was getting early release just added insult to injury.
“I don’t like this,” she said. “Those aliens are making us jump through hoops in return for some vague promises of support when and if they decide we deserve it.”
“If they mistreat any of you, we’ll declare war on them, for what is worth. I doubt we can take the system, even with a carrier group leading the way. But even a small chance they will do as they say is worth t
he risk.”
“I agree,” Heather said. Although I and all the guests are the ones at risk, not you and the other ‘rats sitting comfortably in New Washington.
Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d risked life and limb for the job.
Hell, she thought, realizing it’d only been a few days since her ninja suit caper. It wouldn’t be the first time this week.
Three
Moon Orbit, Sol System, 166 AFC
“Are you okay?” the Navy captain sitting next to her in the crowded passenger shuttle asked her.
“Not really,” Major Lisbeth Zhang said, which was much nicer than what she really wanted to say. The bubblehead didn’t deserve to be the target of her misdirected anger, and he outranked her to boot. “What gave me away?” she went on, trying for a neutral tone of voice. “The fist-clenching, or the bite-marks on my lower lip?”
“The subvocalized cursing, mostly,” the officer replied with a smile. He was a good-looking guy, but at the moment his confident grin only made her want to break his square jaw, dimple and all. She fake-grinned back at him instead.
“You got me, Captain. I got a last-minute reassignment I didn’t care for.”
“Been there. Thank you, by the way.”
“You’re welcome. For what, exactly?”
“I was at Parthenon. XO of the Little Rock. Your fighters saved our collective ass.”
“You’re very welcome, then. And congrats on the promotion.” A lot of officers had gotten promotions out of that space action, herself included. It wasn’t every day that an American fleet destroyed twelve times its own tonnage with relatively paltry losses.
Relatively. The fighter wing that had won the battle had lost twenty percent of its pilots. It’d been a nasty fight.
“Congratulations right back, Major,” the captain said; her personal profile, visible to anyone with a cybernetic implant, showed an officer’s time-in-grade, a whole six weeks in her case. He offered his hand. “Richard Orlov.”
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 67
