Shadow Play

by P. R. Adams

For someone who considered herself hostile to and even quite separated from her mother, the commander was a lot like the senior parliament representative. The younger woman’s almost mercurial nature and her sharp mind…there were times in the last couple weeks where he definitely heard Sargota Benson in her daughter’s voice.

  “Agent Patel isn’t really going to be helpful.”

  “You mean he won’t take my call.”

  “He won’t. Not at this moment.”

  “But he is up there? Floating around, safe in case someone attacks us?”

  “He’s watching for Azoren aircraft.”

  “That won’t do much good. You did hear that they were right in among us before we saw them.”

  “I did. They must have some advanced stealth capabilities.”

  She sighed. “Can you call him, then? See if he knows what’s going on with this robot?”

  “It’s just one part of one robot?”

  “In a huge crater on a moon in enemy space, yes. This doesn’t worry you?”

  He paced the passageway. “I’m not sure what to make of it. It doesn’t sound like a threat to me.”

  “My engineer says something disassembled it. Forcefully. The processors have been wiped clean, as in they’re gone. And this isn’t the whole machine. We don’t even know what it would look like. But it was down here at the bottom of one of the walls.”

  “I can check with him, but the SAID isn’t always forthcoming.”

  She snorted. “I hadn’t noticed that, Colonel.”

  He smiled. So much like her mother. “Is there anything else?”

  “Well, if it matters to you, Captain Gadreau is pissed off, and I don’t think Major Fero is ready to dance, either.”

  “The captain’s a decorated officer. Try to stay on his good side.”

  “I am. It’s just that he pissed Lieutenant Stiles off, so she took one of his men but left the captain behind. And when I told him, he blew a gasket. I think it’s the only time he’s agreed with Major Fero on anything.”

  “It’s for the mission.” McLeod tried not to sound too plucky.

  “Okay. Thank you for your time, Colonel. I’ll let you—”

  Static broke the connection.

  Perhaps he’d gone a little too hard with pluckiness after all. It was so hard to know the line between positive reassurance and smug distancing.

  But the robot thing…

  He must be missing something important, because he just couldn’t see why a piece of a robot in the middle of a crater on a remote moon should be a matter of concern. If anything, it sounded like random noise that couldn’t possibly amount to meaningful risk.

  Agent Patel wasn’t about to provide any insight, but McLeod had to try, regardless. He sent a request to the bridge crew and was connected through.

  In the communicator’s small, hi-resolution display, Patel looked like some warlord, sitting on the deck of the gunship, muscles flexing beneath his tailored uniform top, watching over his crew. The SAID agent glowered. “Avis. Is something amiss?”

  “A status update. Lieutenant Stiles has a team with her, and they’ve managed to get one of the Badgers running. They’re on their way to the ruins.”

  “Stiles? What happened to Captain Gadreau?”

  “Commander Benson needs his expertise defending the crater.”

  “That crater doesn’t matter. She should have inserted Gadreau and a team to handle the extraction.”

  “Her concerns about the unstable ground—”

  “So have the shuttle hover. That’s what they did for the insertion.”

  Which wasn’t what the agent had said originally. “What matters is that the team is on its way.”

  Patel visibly relaxed. “ETA?”

  “Well, you remember the briefing as well as I do. It could be fifteen minutes; it could be an hour. No one knows how long that old vehicle will run.”

  “The rift should be clear. The probe didn’t reveal any obstacles.”

  “But that gets pretty narrow and it takes some sharp turns.”

  The agent frowned. “Thank you for the update.”

  “There is a…complication.”

  “Is this about the gunship?”

  “No.” McLeod wasn’t about to waste energy fighting Patel over using the gunship for even simple reconnaissance. The SAID always had the last say in such matters, and the mission was too far along to risk relationships.

  “What then?”

  “A robot.”

  “Robot?” There was genuine confusion on the man’s face. He didn’t know about the thing.

  “A piece of one. The question is: Where could it have come from? Not your sister, apparently.”

  “We didn’t have any robot assets on Jotun, no.”

  “Well, the discovery apparently disturbed Lieutenant Stiles, and it definitely has Commander Benson on edge.”

  Patel leaned back in his chair. “You should have let me run this op.”

  “This is well-trod ground. We both have assets down there we need to retrieve. You don’t have the resources to do it, and we don’t have the…insight.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about a robot.”

  “And I believe you.” McLeod tapped a finger against his thigh. “So why would they be disturbed by this?”

  “Because they’re out of their depth. A piece of a robot? Really?” Patel snorted.

  “You know, they’re doing what your people said couldn’t be done. Maybe you could remember that next time you mock them.”

  “One team of Marines with the right training, a handful of gunships, and we could have been in and out by now.”

  McLeod’s tapping grew a little more intense. “I’ve known you for nearly ten years and never seen you so wrapped around the axle. What makes this so meaningful to you?”

  Patel glared. “I told you before, my sister—”

  “Your sister. Who you’re so close to, you never mentioned her before you brought me in on this.”

  “We had our issues. Surely, she had her own issues.”

  “I see. And now they’re resolved?”

  The SAID agent pushed up from his chair and walked from the confines of the bridge to a private cabin, which had probably been his throughout the trip. It was dark except for a few soft glowing fixtures. He plopped onto a bunk, which was small and covered with plain, military sheets and a blanket. For someone used to living in the spotlight, moving among big influencers, it seemed a huge fall.

  Finally, Patel ran fingers through his hair. “Srisha was a problem child. She was an embarrassment. She ran with the wrong crowd—protesters and agitators. My mother’s job was at risk.”

  It was a poorly hidden secret that the Patel family had their fingers deep in several facets of the intelligence world, all while maintaining a front as merchants negotiating for trade treaties with the Gulmar Union. If his sister was involved in protests, it would have been against any connections with the Gulmar. The Patel family—the intelligence world—wouldn’t care about radicals pushing for greater government transparency and further military cutbacks. There just wasn’t enough support to cut things any deeper than they’d already gone. Even extremists like Benson’s mother knew that.

  McLeod could understand the worry of parents embarrassed by misguided children. “So they told her to shut it down?”

  “They took away her stipend. They gave her an ultimatum: Enter government service, or move out.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I pulled strings and recommended they push her into SAID.”

  “Oh. That seems extreme.”

  “She put us all at risk. There was an incident. She stole information.”

  “Ah.” There had been rumors, a black eye on the Patel name. But then the rumors had disappeared.

  “So she joined the SAID?”

  “And she did well. Very well.” Patel rocked back and forth.

  “Well enough to be selected for this outpost.”

  “A
very plum assignment for a junior agent. Very high profile.”

  “More strings you pulled?”

  The SAID agent’s head dropped lower. All the swagger and disdain that was as much a part of him as his tailored uniforms, perfect-cut hair, and rippling muscles seemed to drain away. “I called in some favors. I told her this would make things right with our mother again.”

  Now it all made sense. Someone with a record—someone who would have a hard time ever gaining true trust within the SAID or any intelligence organization—being able to land a high-profile position…it took strings being pulled.

  Patel’s voice shook when he exhaled. “I was always the star, Avis. Top of my class in school. Top of my class at the SAID. Handpicked for several important assignments. She couldn’t compete.”

  “You were just trying to help.”

  “But I shouldn’t have had to. My parents had enough influence. And it hurt Srisha to know that despite their claims otherwise, our parents did not support her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s a good kid. Bad luck, resentment, a few bad decisions. Kids are like that. No one is perfect.”

  McLeod smiled at that. How many times had he embarrassed his parents? Too many.

  Patel raised his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s all on me. I have to save her. This gunship, it’s our emergency plan. You understand? If all else fails, we can still get her out.”

  It was selfish. It was abhorrent. But it was family. “We’ll make this work.”

  “I knew you’d understand, Avis.”

  “Do keep your eyes peeled for aircraft, though.”

  “You know I will. This mission…”

  “Yes. The mission.”

  McLeod disconnected, then requested a re-connection to Benson.

  Instead, he received a connection from Scalise. Her face was pinched and red. “Colonel, we can’t reach Jotun.”

  “Why not? I was just—”

  “If you could come to the bridge, I’ll show you.”

  He closed the connection and grumbled to himself as he headed through the hatch.

  There was an anxious energy to the air. People moved quickly, voices were raised, the tones clipped and folks chattered over each other.

  Scalise stepped from her station, hands clenched at her side. “Problems.” She looked at the display as if everything should be obvious to him.

  “What sort of problems?”

  “The older ships taken out of mothball? Those Fold Space drives?”

  “Yes?”

  “They’ve been causing intermittent systems failures.”

  “Can they be fixed?”

  A tic rippled along the right side of the commander’s face. “They’re working on it. But that’s only part of the problem.”

  McLeod wanted to squeeze her by the shoulders and demand that she get to the point. “What else is there?”

  Someone to his left had audio coming in: damage reports, systems failures.

  But Scalise was pointing to something off to McLeod’s right, where ripples of green energy radiated from a point somewhere on the other side of the gas giant.

  One of the young officers turned around, eyes wide. “That one was stronger, Commander. No mistaking it.”

  Scalise nodded. “Thank you.” Her eyes flashed up to McLeod, as if expecting him to understand it all.

  He rolled his eyes. “What? What is it?”

  “Fold Space energy. Those are pre-crests.”

  “What again?”

  “Pre-crests. Ripples at the front of a wave. Something’s coming out of Fold Space, and they’re coming out dangerously close to that gas giant.”

  “That sounds insane.”

  “Or ballsy.” The chunky woman tugged on her sideburns. “It’s something big, too.”

  McLeod’s stomach fluttered. It had to be some sort of mistake. They didn’t have the ships to stand up to something big. They were meant to rush in, grab their assets, and rush out.

  The young officer who had nervously confirmed this ripple spun around again. “Commander! It breached! Something big, exiting Fold Space.”

  Scalise hissed. “I need confirmation. What’s out there?”

  Sweat left a sheen on the young officer’s forehead. “Azoren Federation ship, ma’am. A…cruiser. Heavy. And it’s headed toward us.”

  “Damn.” Scalise glared at McLeod. “Sound battle stations.”

  McLeod couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What’s this mean?”

  “It means, Colonel, that we’re about to find out just how we stack up against the Azoren navy.”

  17

  Faint lights winked in and out deep in the crater, not matching the whistle of the sporadic wind. The image sent chills down O’Bannon’s spine. What had his grandmother called such things? Will o’ Wisps? Malevolent spirits of the damned come to take the souls of the innocent to the fey lands. He was no innocent, not after decades of war, but he wasn’t evil, either. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that entering the pit was the same as accepting death and sending his soul to some faraway damnation.

  From his left, Lieutenant Franke crawled over. “Major? You see the lights?”

  “Yes. Likely lures to draw fire.”

  “Then they are down there? These Kedraalian invaders are real?”

  The major put his trusty binoculars to his faceplate and let the video synchronize with his goggle optics. All across the crater floor and along the walls, there were glows of heat, pale stars in the abyss. Decoys. Clever. Resourceful. What else might they have down there? He could make out small spacecraft. Shuttles, most likely. There would be improvised cover, heavy weapons emplacements—things that blocked their heat signatures.

  All while his men were left exposed. They might not be giving off a bright heat signature themselves, but he could see them with his own binoculars, and they were old. Surely an enemy such as the Kedraalians would have superior technology.

  He put the binoculars back in their case. “They’re down there. Their numbers, however, remain unknown.”

  “But you said there were shuttles.”

  “Some, yes. A few look intact. And they’ve detonated something about a third of the way down. There will be mines, no doubt.”

  “And we have heard nothing from Captain Knoel?”

  “Not a sound.”

  The lieutenant poked his head over the edge of the crater lip. “Could he have left us to face the worst of their weapons?”

  “With people like him, it is always a possibility. It is more likely he will wish to bloody his little knives to actually earn a real medal for once.”

  “We should head back to the base, bring back the mortars and rain fire on the crater.”

  “Prudent, even if we lack the munitions to break them.”

  “A few rounds among those spacecraft, they will rethink ambushing us.”

  “Perhaps, Jan. But we need prisoners.”

  “There are always survivors from artillery.”

  “We need prisoners we can interrogate, not shattered vegetables. And we want to see their weapons. How better to assess the enemy than to see how they have progressed?”

  The young, wiry man grunted, then edged away and poked his head over the lip of the crater again. After a minute, he came back. “You take Andressen, Gerard, and Lyonne, Major. I will split the rest of the men into four squads and descend here, here, here, and here.” Franke indicated four parts of the southern wall roughly equidistant from each other.

  “And I am to watch while you and your men test the enemy?”

  “We must be sure we know where they are before you enter.”

  “I will enter along with you. I will lead the easternmost descent; you take the westernmost. Your sergeants can manage the center.”

  Franke nodded. “Very well, Major.”

  O’Bannon waited for his assigned escort to come to him, then pushed back from the edge and led them to the east, where Franke had indicated the fourth group w
ould descend. That squad formed up a few meters back from the crater.

  Andressen wrapped the printed out, black, improvised stealth material around him. “This will hide us from their eyes, Major?”

  “More than descending without it.”

  Lyonne helped Gerard secure the back of the covering material; O’Bannon did the same for Andressen.

  Then the major waved the three younger men in. “We descend now. We maintain a consistent distance—five meters. We rely on silence. Always be sure of your step. Look. Listen. Use your communicator to keep track of your comrade’s location. Is this understood?”

  They all three responded, “Yes, Major!”

  “Good. Private Andressen, follow me, then Lyonne, then Gerard.”

  O’Bannon dropped to elbows and knees and crawled forward, feeling ancient and terrified and worrying about Mia and the children. How could Andressen see his promotion if something happened to his commander? What would that bastard Knoel do with no one to challenge his no doubt lopsided retelling of what transpired?

  I must survive. I must lead these young men as I would have twenty years ago.

  So O’Bannon followed his own guidance, watching each step, looking and listening.

  The crater wall was slick and black beneath boot and glove, covered in a thin layer of ice. Despite his best efforts toward caution, he slipped a few times, once sliding several meters before his boots found purchase on a narrow ledge. They only held for a moment, then he fell to his butt with a rattling, jarring impact that knocked the breath from him. That was good, because the pain in his knee would have otherwise forced a scream from him.

  Andressen’s voice was a hiss. “Major? Major O’Bannon!”

  The young man was there in no time, pulling his commander up, pushing him away from the edge and onto a wider protrusion.

  “You are well, Major?”

  There was no replying, not yet. The wind was still gone. The fire in his knee still too intense. Instead, O’Bannon nodded. He felt foolish and even older than before.

  Finally, he could croak weakly. “A bad step in the dark. A foolish old man’s mistake.”

  “You saved me from making the same mistake, sir.”

  O’Bannon waved the mollifying compliment away, then dropped to his knees with a groan. “Let me see what there is to see now.”