by Kal Spriggs
“The Guard Peacekeepers are demanding that we stand to and prepare to be boarded,” Fenris growled. “But as they only have a small Fleet presence and we have a battlecruiser...”
“What about the other mercenary companies?” Mel demanded.
“They're currently backing me in ordering the Guard Fleet elements to stand down. All communications are coming from Guard Fleet Captain Schapper of the Konigsberg. Apparently he is the ranking surviving Guard officer after the destruction of their headquarters building.”
“He can't command their Guard Army personnel, except in a genuine combat emergency,” Mel thought aloud. “Have Swaim dig into their communications net, locate their senior surviving ground officer and try to get him on the net. If we can get them arguing about overall command...”
“Yes, Captain,” Fenris replied. A moment later he spoke, “Coming alongside the ship, now, Captain.” Mel didn't ask about his formality. The formality was for the sake of their “guest.” She shot him another look. He was still bleeding from his shoulder wound and he looked rather pale. “Tank,” Mel started to say, but he'd already pulled out the shuttle's medical kit.
“Just a flesh wound, through and through, I think,” Tank said
“Alright, I need to get to the bridge,” Mel said as the shuttle's hatch slid open. She just hoped she could salvage this situation.
***
“...demand that the escaped prisoner be turned over immediately!” An officer in the gray-green Guard Army uniform sputtered.
“How exactly is it that he escaped?” Mel recognized Commodore Creed's voice. She was glad to know he'd survived the bombing. A moment later, she heard her grandmother's voice and she felt some of the knots in her chest unravel in relief.
“Yes, I believe that Major General Tibault assured me that he was comfortable and secure. A full company of military police providing his guard detail,” Admiral Armstrong said, her voice icy. “Why, exactly, if his treatment has been exemplary, would he feel the need to escape and how would he manage to overwhelm so many personnel in order to seize a shuttle?”
“That's...” The officer paused, licking his lips. Mel could see he wore a Colonel's pips on his collar. “There was a miss-communication and his guard force was pulled away. A platoon of Guard Army, Special Service personnel took over his security. I'm not sure how he escaped them, only that he had.”
“I see,” Commodore Creed said. “Well, since you are unaware of how he escaped, perhaps it is best that we safeguard him. Especially since his escape comes only a couple weeks before the referendum on the Harmony Protectorate's new leadership... which he is currently ahead in the polls to win.”
“I think that it would be best...”
“Thank you, Colonel, I've got to go,” Commodore Creed said. A moment later, the transmission terminated.
“We tapped into their comms in the middle of their conversation,” Swaim explained. “Do you still want me to try to pull up Colonel Steyn?”
“No,” Mel said. It seemed that Commodore Creed and the Admiral were already ahead of her.
“We have an incoming transmission from Commodore Creed,” Fenris announced.
Mel moved to the command chair, “Put it to my personal display.” She was aware that she was smoke-stained and dirty. She ran a hand through her blonde hair and realized that her pony-tail had come loose and her blonde hair was mussed.
She accepted the call, “Good to see you, sir,” Mel began.
“The man that you rescued,” Commodore Creed said in a flat tone, “is Admiral Nashim Rao, the leader of the coup that discharged the Harmony Protectorate's previous civilian government. I sincerely hope that he is still alive and relatively uninjured.”
Mel felt her throat constrict a bit, “Yes, sir, he'd been shot, presumably in his escape attempt.”
“That wasn't his escape attempt,” Commodore Creed snarled. Yet his anger didn't seem to be aimed at her. “The Special Service team that took charge of him were going to shoot him, dump the body in the ocean, and then plant evidence that he'd escaped. At least, that's what my contacts in the Guard Army have confirmed.”
Here I am, caught in the middle, Mel realized. “What should I do, sir?”
“For now, hold on to him. Your arrival disrupted their plan. I don't trust them not to shoot down a shuttle, now that they know where he is. After things have settled a bit, we'll transfer him over to my ship and then we'll see about a more permanent solution.”
“Why would they try to kill him?” Mel asked.
“Corruption, mostly. When Major General Tibault died in the attack on her headquarters... well, I think some of her cronies saw a chance to use the confusion to their advantage. They pulled out Admiral Rao's security detail and then sent a team to extract and kill him.”
Mel's stomach twisted in a knot. “So the Task Force commander is dead?”
“Yes... and Guard Free Now has taken credit for the bombing,” Commodore Creed shook his head. “And their candidate just jumped ten points at the polls, too. If these idiots had managed to kill Rao, there's a good chance that Argun and her damned Hippies would win this election...”
“Argun and the Hippies?” Mel asked. It sounded like some kind of band.
“Garina Argun. She's the leader of the Harmony Initiative People's Party for Independence and Equality, HIPPIE, candidate,” Commodore Creed said. “She's officially decried the bombing, but it's almost a certainty that she knew about it ahead of time and that she has close ties to Guard Free Now. Goddamned HIPPIE's, can't trust any of them.”
Mel didn't know what to say about that. She'd run into Guard Free Now, they were entirely too sanguine about taking the lives of innocent people to achieve their goals. The thought of a powerful nation, like Harmony, giving them support and resources to carry out their attacks was enough to make her blanch.
“Alright,” Commodore Creed said after a moment. “At least he's alive and in our custody... and I expect him to stay that way until I have the opportunity to transfer him aboard my ship, am I understood?”
Mel blinked, “Of course, sir.”
“Good, because right now I'm saving the Guard from themselves by keeping him alive,” Creed grumbled. “Stupid, corrupt, idiots that they are, in this case they're better than the alternative...”
Hammer Squadron's commanding officer cut the call and Mel settled back to her seat. “Tank, this is Captain Amiss,” she sent over the ship's intercom.
“Captain?” Johnny Woodard replied back through his comm unit.
“Our guest is a VIP, please keep him alive and transfer him to one of our guest quarters, rather than the brig. But keep him under guard as well. I'll send Brian down to spell you out.” She didn't trust Marcus or Bob quite enough to put them on the detail.
She heard him acknowledge her order and then sat back, her mind ranging over all that had just happened. Mel didn't want to think, but she couldn't help it. Guard Free Now had just tried to kill her. They had killed who knew how many people in the process.
Had her brother been a part of it? For that matter, the Guard had moved pretty quickly after the incident to eliminate Admiral Rao, had they planned all of this? She shivered as she contemplated that... yet it fit with what what she'd seen of Guard Intelligence.
Mel needed to find out more... and the only way to do that was to start digging.
***
“...Guard Free Now has taken responsibility for the bombing of the Peacekeeper Headquarters building, an attack that took the lives of two hundred and thirty one people. A message sent to our news center claims that, I quote, 'the attack is a strike against the oppressors, that all those who serve in Guard uniforms are complicit.' The message, however, did not address the seventy-five bystanders and civilians killed in and around the building when the bomb went off...”
Mel turned off the news stream and looked up, “Anything, Fenris?”
“All indications suggest this was a Guard Free Now attack. I'm reading the Gu
ard Intelligence traffic. It's still too early for them to have called off their rescue attempts, much less begun full forensics of the site, but there are some details they've put together.”
Her display cleared and then showed a three-dimensional diagram of the building. “The explosion originated in the car garage beneath the structure. All indications are that it was one large device, probably brought in by a van or small cargo truck.” A simulated explosion radiated out from the parking area, and Fenris paused it, “From observations and the layout of how the building collapsed, I would estimate that a plastic stabilized explosive was used, rather than bulk explosives. Probably industrial grade, I would estimate that it was a single detonation point from the blast-wave propagation.”
“Similar to what GFN used at Triad and Dakoata?” Mel asked.
“Indeed,” Fenris growled. “In other ways, this bombing matches the profile of the bombs that your brother constructed for them before. The placement and location was near the central support columns of the structure. The method of insertion, through the parking garage, is identical. The single large charge over smaller, individually placed explosives as well.”
“This was probably the same team, then, or at least they're using the same playbook,” Mel said musingly. “Okay. So odds are, we're dealing with Colonel Frost and my brother.”
“That seems likely,” Fenris agreed. He didn't say anything for a long moment. When the AI did speak, his gruff voice was hesitant. “Mel, I have to ask, have you considered that perhaps it is too late to turn your brother from this path?”
Mel's lips pinched together. She quashed her first impulse, which was to snap at him. She forced herself to examine, really examine, not just her feelings, but also the situation. “That might be right. But I have to try. Maybe he's gone mad. Maybe he's chuckling as he watches the news, maybe he enjoys the fact that he's killed all these people... but if that's the case, then I owe it to him to be the one to find him and.... deal with him.” It was hard to say those words. Yet she knew it was true. If her brother had gone completely around the bend, where he didn't mind killing, or worse, enjoyed killing innocent men and women, then she'd be doing the right thing by putting him down.
“If, however, he's just in over his head, if he's not complicit with what happened, if he's being used and this is the only thing he can do to stay alive, then maybe I can reach him. Maybe I can talk him down,” Mel said.
“I understand, Mel,” Fenris growled, “but you have to admit, that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. He may not have planned the bombing, but he had to have known that there would be people in the area.”
“I know,” Mel replied and she closed her eyes on the tears that wanted to flow. “And even if I do talk him down, I have no idea what to do after that. Whether he's gone rogue terrorist or not, he has provided materiel support to people who are terrorists in every sense of the word. I don't know if there's a chance to redeem him, I don't know the path forward, but I just know I have to try.”
“Alright, Mel,” Fenris answered. “This being human thing is difficult. It would be far easier if I still thought I was a soulless machine, you know?”
“Yeah,” Mel sighed, “tell me about it.”
***
“You said we'd hit them at night, not in the middle of a damned protest!” Rawn snarled at Colonel Frost.
“Plans changed,” Colonel Frost waved a hand. “And before you protest that there were innocent men and women who were killed, you knew the risks going in.”
Rawn looked away. He had known that other people might be in the area. The plan had been for the riot to start and for the Guard to evacuate the civilians in the building and for the riot police to disperse the crowds, and then for the bomb to detonate. But there had always been a risk that it would go off early.
“What happened?” Rawn asked.
“I don't know, yet,” Colonel Frost admitted. “My team hasn't reported in, yet. The good news is that we threw them into confusion. I'm told there was even a bit of fratricide between some of the Guard Army personnel and one of the recently arrived mercenary companies. There was also some kind of attempt on Rao's life, but I gather the mercenaries evacuated him.”
Rawn blinked in surprise, “I thought we wanted to capture him alive?” Not that Admiral Rao would support their cause, but he knew the location of the lab that had produced Jormungandr's Venom.
“It wasn't our team that tried to kill him,” Colonel Frost snorted. “I'm still not sure who, whether one of the mercenary companies took a bribe, or some of his political enemies. Honestly, if we had some other way to extract our information, I'd be fine with him catching a random bullet.”
Rawn winced a bit in response. The military officer who'd led the coup here on Harmony actually seemed like a decent sort. The man had overthrown his corrupt government because they were supporting piracy and because they'd developed some kind of superweapon. In a lot of ways, Rawn empathized with the man's choice.
Unfortunately, he was leading in the polls to be the next president of Harmony. The Harmony Initiative People's Party for Independence and Equality, Garina Argun, was number two, and the other candidates were all far behind. Since HIPPIE's supported Guard Free Now and Colonel Frost had already negotiated safe-havens with them throughout the Protectorate if they won, it would be a good thing of Admiral Rao was out of the picture.
Colonel Frost's stated intention was to interrogate him, receive the location of the lab, and then turn him loose. Rawn wasn't so certain that he could trust his superior to do that. Colonel Frost had few compunctions when it came to the fight against the Guard. While Admiral Rao might not support the Guard, he didn't support Guard Free Now, and to Colonel Frost, that might be enough to make him short-lived indeed.
Cross that bridge when we come to it, Rawn told himself. Every day living with Guard Free Now was something he had to take a little at a time. If he stopped to think, if he looked too far ahead, he might find himself paralyzed.
He had realized quickly that he didn't want to be here. His initial anger over the death of his sister had carried him only so far. Yet it wasn't as if he had any options. Guard Intelligence had a detain order on him. If they found him, the best he could hope for was that they'd ship him to a penal colony. More likely than not, they'd simply shoot him in the back of the head or dump him out an airlock.
Besides, Rawn hated the Guard. He hated their heavy-handedness, he hated their corruption. The bomb he'd built to destroy the Guard Peacekeeper Headquarters in Kharma had been aimed at killing Major General Tibault and her staff, all of whom were bought by the megacorporations out of the Parisian Sector. Major General Tibault had been taking bribes to limit aid relief to the Harmony Protectorate. Her staff had been running a variety of scams that ranged from human trafficking to extortion. They'd shut down local businesses, they'd signed permits for the megacorporations to set up shop, they'd even been trading in mineral rights, land, and property.
The Protectorate's previous oligarchy hadn't been much better, but they'd at least cared somewhat about their star system. Major General Tibault had simply wanted to make as much money has she could before the referendum locked her out.
“Alright, sir, shall I continue my work on Operation Tsunami?” Rawn asked.
Colonel Frost's eyes narrowed. Rawn wondered if he'd been too quick to change the subject. With Colonel Frost, you never wanted to give him the impression that you were anything less than a hundred percent obedient and loyal. He'd executed those he suspected of being Guard agents or informers, often without warning. Rawn felt a sweat bead his forehead as Colonel Frost's icy blue eyes bored into him.
“Yes,” Colonel Frost said after a long moment. “Continue with the preparations. How are you on the overrides?”
Rawn swallowed as he considered that part. Perhaps he hadn't chosen the safest topic of conversation, especially not with the nagging doubts he still felt. “I've managed the hardware overrides on seven of the vesse
ls,” Rawn said. “The software in the navigational computers still needs work. I think I can have it done in time... but the thing with the software is we won't know one hundred percent that it works until we try it.”
Colonel Frost's blonde eyebrows went up. His frown suggested that he almost thought Rawn was lying... or was trying to cover himself if anything went wrong.
“Look,” Rawn said, “the way the navigational computers work is that their database continually updates and the navigational data is tied directly into the system. You can't alter or remove anything from the data without the navigational codes, otherwise the system defaults to shutting down. It's part of the safeties inherent in the system. They don't want someone accidentally removing a planet or other stellar body from their database and then managing to run into it with their warp-drive. It defaults to shutting down the whole system if you even try. Which means what I'm doing is very delicate and we may think it's working, but instead all our data is going to be totally off and these ships won't go where you want them.”
“This is why I wanted to capture the Fenris,” Colonel Frost snapped.
“Even warp-drive missiles tend to have these kind of safeties built in, so it wouldn't matter if we had military-grade ships or even warp missiles. We'd still have this issue, sir,” Rawn noted.
“That's... unfortunate.” Frost sighed. “Still, there's reasons that no one has tried this, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir,” Rawn nodded. Aside from the obvious problems with genocide... Still they didn't plan to use Tsunami at all. It was meant to be a last-ditch effort, a bargaining method, nothing more. But that bomb wasn't supposed to kill any civilians, a quiet voice whispered in the back of Rawn's mind, and some of those bombs on Triad were used against civilian targets...
