Bound by Honor

by Terry Mixon

  “Blackmail or threats of force,” Brad said. “Otherwise, this person wouldn’t have voted to hire us. Someone got to them.”

  “That matches my assessment,” Ngu agreed. “Yet it still leaves us with the situation we find ourselves in, whether we suspect foul play or not. Your mandate to operate in Venusian space is unfortunately rescinded.”

  Brad nodded slowly. “I hope the loss of the base impacts the pirates’ ability to operate, but I’m very much afraid it won’t.” He rose to his feet when the governor stood, extending his hand. “Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to tell me in person. I appreciate it.”

  The governor’s handshake was extra firm this time. “You risked your lives and almost died carrying out your duty. That demands respect, Commodore. You can rest assured that the most glowing recommendation my staff can write will be winging its way to the Mercenary Guild shortly. Safe journeys and may your next contract be less…confrontational.”

  Brad laughed as he led the governor to the hatch. “I’m a mercenary, Governor Ngu. Every contract is built on confrontation. I’ll just hope that there are no nukes next time.

  “Speaking of which, I’d be expecting a Fleet element to come investigating that if I were you. Trust me when I say that the use of one is a red line that they won’t tolerate anyone crossing.”

  “I’ve sent them a report,” Ngu said dryly. “They’ll get back to me, I’m told. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it. No one uses nukes on a planet. Something odd is happening with Fleet, Commodore, and I’m worried. They’re not behaving as I’d have expected, and that bodes ill for the Commonwealth.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Michelle demanded when he told her they’d been paid off. “That’s insane.”

  “It’s certainly not going to solve their problem,” he agreed. “Yet what can we do? One thing I’ve discovered in life is that you can rarely save people from themselves. They’ve made the choice, or were driven into it, and they’ll have to sleep in the bed they’ve made.

  “We’ll take on fuel and supplies before leaving. That was part of the contract, and it might leave enough time for the Agency contact to get instructions to meet with us before we depart. Drag it out as long as you can without making us look completely incompetent.”

  His wife nodded. “I can have the other Captains take their sweet time. With our full fleet here, that’ll eat up three or four hours even without slowing the process down. Do you think we should expect another visitor or a com contact this time?”

  “Damned if I know,” he admitted. “Have everyone be on the lookout for a direct contact, and we’ll just have to see if anyone steps forward. To give them as much time as possible, let’s have Oath serviced last.”

  Michelle managed to drag out the servicing to almost six hours by the time his flagship was taking on supplies. She’d managed that by having everything inspected before it was brought on board. When the Venusians complained, she made a mushroom cloud gesture with both hands. That seemed to do the trick.

  Xan Wong turned away from the communications console as they were wrapping up taking on fuel and supplies. “We have an incoming signal, sir. It’s using Agency encryption.”

  “Well, it certainly took the Agency long enough to get back with us,” Brad said.

  “Actually, sir, it’s not from Earth. This is a live call from New Venice.”

  He sat up a little straighter. “Without a signal from Earth? We’re close enough to New Venice to have picked up at least the edges of an Agency signal, unless it was completely disguised and using non-Agency protocols.”

  “That’s right, sir. No signal from the Agency on Earth that we could detect.”

  “I’ll take it in my office,” Brad said, rising to his feet.

  Once he was seated at his desk, he used his codes to authenticate the sender. The screen in front of him cleared and he found himself looking at a familiar face.

  “Stacy, right?” he asked. “Councilor Fisk’s driver slash bodyguard. Not who I was expecting.”

  The bald woman smiled thinly at him. “That’s part of the job. It took me a while to confirm who the Agent in the Vikings was. The brass wasn’t being forthcoming. I just got a private message—fully encrypted with a cypher not connected with the Agency—confirming your status. I’d have to say you’ve got an excellent cover, Commodore. Much more mobile than me.”

  He nodded. “It does have its moments. So, you were working with Agent Mulroney?”

  “Not exactly. The two of us were working on different things, but we’d partnered in the past. My mission here is to keep an eye on Venusian politics. Hers was to trace criminal activity by the Cadre. When she vanished, I notified the Agency immediately.”

  “Can you provide any information on the Cadre operations here?” he asked.

  “Sadly, no. We knew and trusted one another, but you know how the Agency is about sharing data like that. Need to know. Can you tell me what happened to her?”

  Brad could see the pain in the woman’s eyes. There had been a real friendship between the two women. Perhaps more.

  “You received the signal from her?”

  Stacy nodded. “That’s how I knew someone in your organization had to be Agency. I would’ve gone after her if you hadn’t reacted so quickly.”

  “Agent Mulroney never had a chance,” he said. “The pirates killed her right after she sent the message. It was quick and she didn’t suffer too much.”

  A lie and a damned lie, but one he didn’t hesitate uttering. There was no need for the woman to be haunted by something she couldn’t have changed.

  “You should take up poker,” Stacy said, a tear running down her face. “I sometimes wish I wasn’t so good at spotting falsehood. Thank you for trying.”

  Well, dammit.

  “I’m being serious when I say you couldn’t have done anything,” he said after a few seconds. “Once she called for help, she was dead before anyone could have gotten to her. That’s the truth.”

  “Get them,” Stacy said fiercely. “Make them pay for killing my friend.”

  “You have my word on that.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I never imagined anything like this,” Michelle said softly from the pilot’s console, her voice filled with awe as she stared at the main screen.

  Brad had to agree. He’d thought the Jovian Cluster was busy, but it didn’t hold a candle to Earth orbit. There were more ships and stations here than he could count. Big ones, too.

  “Welcome to Earth,” he said. “Home to humanity and still the largest population by a few orders of magnitude. Narendra, can you tell how many ships and stations we’re looking at?”

  His tactical officer shrugged and shook her head. “Not with the restrictions placed on us, no sir. Fleet was pretty emphatic that we stick with passive sensors. Hundreds of stations, though. Mostly small, but some bigger than the Io shipyards. Thousands of ships, if you count the runabouts.”

  The runabouts she was speaking about were like shuttles, only smaller and made to go point to point in Earth orbit. They swarmed around the stations like insects. He hated to think of how frazzled traffic control got with them.

  The Fleet restrictions she’d mentioned were that only one of his ships could get any nearer than the leading or trailing Lagrange points. That made sense, considering the firepower a ship could bring to bear and the fact that the Cadre had been killing people in job lots recently.

  They’d allowed Oath in, though with significant restrictions. No active sensors and a pair of escorting destroyers sitting right behind him. If his ship showed any signs of powering weapons or maneuvering in a way they didn’t like, those two ships could gut him and his command in an instant.

  Frankly, he doubted they’d have let him in at all if the Agency hadn’t insisted. Fleet had argued that Brad could take a shuttle in from where his ships were waiting. The discussion over the three-way com had gotten…spirited.

  “Where do they have us going
?” he asked Michelle as they all drank in the magnificent globe of the home world.

  “A Fleet station about eighty degrees around the planet from where we are now. It’ll keep us under its guns, I’m sure. That’ll free the destroyers to return to their patrol area. An Agency contact is going to meet us there.”

  Brad grunted and nodded. He wondered if it would be Falcone. She’d been awfully quiet lately. He hoped it was her. The way things had been going for them lately, he dreaded any more surprises.

  Brad exited the shuttle to find someone other than Kate Falcone waiting for him.

  “Commodore Madrid,” the short woman with green hair said, her voice light and high. “Welcome to Earth. I’m supposed to pick up something from you.”

  No name. He guessed that wasn’t so surprising. Why lie when you can say nothing at all?

  “You can have it,” he agreed, “if you have the right code.”

  Her smile widened and she gave him the code he’d been expecting. With a shrug, he pulled Mulroney’s wrist-comp from his jacket and handed it over.

  “I don’t suppose you can confirm that you’ll pass along any information that will help us catch the Cadre, once you’ve accessed it.”

  “Actually, I can. Our lords and masters instructed me to tell you that they’ll send you a burst transmission with anything they deem useful as soon as they can do so.”

  That surprised him more than a bit. He might as well push his luck.

  “Since they’re in such a giving mood, see if they’ll send along some of the coms built into that unit. We’re out on the pointy end and could use them.”

  “No promises,” she said as she put the wrist-comp away. “They’re stingy that way. If you hang around for a day or so, it’s still possible, though. Good luck, Commodore. Give those bastards hell.”

  The woman stepped away and two men materialized out of the side passages to escort her away.

  Before he could turn back toward his shuttle, a third man stepped out and cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you’d care to have dinner with an old man, would you, Commodore Madrid?”

  Brad blinked in surprise at the unexpected sight of the man representing the Jovian Cluster in the Commonwealth Senate.

  He smiled and extended his hand to Senator Barnes. “I’m surprised to see you, Senator, but I can always make time for a friend.”

  Senator Barnes hadn’t been alone, of course. He’d had his own security detail and transport. Those worthies saw them to a different shuttle and off to another station in orbit. One that proved to be significantly larger than the Fleet station and also much more opulent.

  At least, the section where they’d docked was. Lush white carpet covered the floors and what certainly appeared to be genuine pieces of art—originals—were spaced along the corridor and set in dedicated niches. Nothing he recognized, but undoubtedly something worth a significant chunk of his salary.

  The Senator led him to a private lift that took them directly into a suite of rooms. “Welcome to my home away from home. We can relax for a bit while Javier gets dinner finalized. He’s already started the preparation, you understand, but I didn’t want to assume you’d be free to see me on such short notice. Would you care for a drink?”

  Brad nodded. “I don’t have much experience with particular brands of note, but I’ll take a scotch, neat. Do you have many people turn you down, Senator? I can’t imagine you get refused often.”

  The man laughed as he headed for a bar set into the wall beside a wide viewport showing the curve of Earth below the station. “You’d be shocked, I’m sure. That’s a big part of my job, turning noes into yeses. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never been to Earth before,” Brad admitted as he took the tumbler from the Senator. “It’s a bit overwhelming.”

  “That it is. I heard about your run-in with the Cadre at Venus. Nasty business, that. The use of a nuke on a planetary surface—even one as inhospitable as Venus—raises the stakes significantly. The Cadre is moving into the Inner System and that disturbs me.”

  Brad sipped the scotch and found it smooth and mellow. Better than he’d ever had, truth be told.

  “My wife and I agree with you,” he told Barnes. “Whatever they’re planning, it’s closer to fruition than any of us would care to admit. I don’t suppose you have any insight on that? The Agency is somewhat tight-lipped.”

  Barnes frowned slightly. “I have my sources, obviously, but I’m still in the dark. With their actions to date, it seems certain that it revolves around challenging Fleet, but the details remain elusive.

  “That’s not helping me bring the Senate together either, I’m afraid. We’re still split into factions, each one thinking they have a clearer idea of what is going on and what the Cadre’s motives are than the rest. And then there’s that so-called Independence Militia. That’s really knocked everyone for a loop.”

  The Senator took a sip of his own drink. “That has some pushing to declare a number of colonies in the Outer System to be in rebellion and send Fleet in to crush them. In my view, that would be a disaster of the first order, but the notion is gaining in popularity the more outrageous the attacks become. That nuke will make the hawks scream even louder.

  “My allies and I have had to resort to using the purse strings to reducing Fleet strength to pull the hawks’ teeth. If they gain the upper hand, we’ll have a full-blown civil war and we’ll never manage to put the Commonwealth back together.”

  Brad felt his eyes narrowing. How could such a smart man be so blind? Yes, he was right about stopping a civil war, but how could he be gutting Fleet when the Cadre was growing in strength by leaps and bounds?

  “Is that wise?” he asked softly. “We need Fleet strong because the Cadre isn’t getting any weaker. Fleet didn’t even bother sending a ship to Venus. ‘Spread too thin,’ they said. Gelding our only defense against the pirates might be worse in the long run.”

  Barnes shook his head. “You’re wrong there, but I get your point. Recent events have forced my allies and me to exactly that realization. We’re going to have to open the spigots more and stop Fleet from fading away until the Cadre is dealt with.

  “One thing I just don’t understand is how the hawks are sticking so closely together. They don’t seem to have a clear-cut leader, but their policy suggestions and goals all seem to be aligned very closely together. It’s almost as much a mystery as where the Cadre is getting all those damned warships.”

  Brad froze, his drink partway to his lips. “Excuse me?”

  It was the Senator’s turn to look surprised. “The warships the Cadre keeps throwing around. It mystifies me why we can’t locate the damned shipyard building them or discover what means they have of stealing them.”

  Feeling his hand tremble just the slightest bit, Brad tossed back the last of his scotch and set the glass on a handy table. “Senator, I discovered who was building the Cadre ships almost two months ago. Agent Falcone headed to Earth to personally deliver that information.”

  The Senator blinked in shock. “No one has said a word. I mean, I’d heard she was scheduled to report something to the Senate, but her presentation was cancelled at the last moment.”

  “Oh, hell,” Brad said grimly. “Something has gone terribly wrong.”

  Barnes listened with a furious expression as Brad recounted all the details they’d learned about Transplanetary Macro Fabrication building extra Fleet vessels for direct delivery to the Cadre. The man looked as if he wanted to pull his hair out. Brad completely understood and felt exactly the same way.

  Not only had someone managed to bury the information they’d fought so hard to get—possibly burying Kate Falcone along with it—they’d kept it so quiet that Brad hadn’t heard a peep. Not only that, they’d have kept delivering warships to the pirates in the meantime.

  Someone there on Earth had gotten wind of what they’d discovered before Falcone had managed to tell anyone. She hadn’t even told her superiors the details so
that no one could leak it. Her plan had been to level the charges directly to the Senate so that no one could spin things.

  He damned himself for assuming that she’d taken care of that without following up. Granted, the woman had a habit of vanishing for months at a time, but this had been critical. As many times as he’d told junior officers that they had to positively verify the important things, he’d screwed up badly this time.

  The Senator rubbed his face when Brad was done. “I can see that you blame yourself, but I’m just as guilty. I assumed the Agency had shunted her off on a critical mission and never thought twice about it.”

  The two of them had adjourned to the dining room to eat, but Brad could barely taste the food. “We have to figure out where she was when they took her. I’m very much afraid that we may never see her again. The Cadre doesn’t like leaving live enemies behind them. We also need to get the word about the shipyard to the Agency. Someone we can be sure we can trust.”

  “I’ll handle that,” Barnes said heavily. “I’ll handle all of that personally and keep you updated every few days just to be sure nothing happens to me in the middle of doing so without you knowing.”

  “How can I help?” Brad asked. “We’re here and I have to be able to contribute in some way.”

  Barnes shook his head. “I wish you could, but one of the things the Agency wanted me to go over with you tonight was a new mission. One that might be more important than either of us realize after Venus. Or a bust. I wish I knew for sure, but honestly, I’m the better choice to work here. This is my second home.”

  That didn’t sit well with Brad, but it wasn’t as if he had a lot of choice. “What do they need?”

  “There have been a rash of potential Cadre sightings at Ceres. Mostly ships that the Agency suspects are working for the pirates. That’s not unusual, but there have been a lot of them stopping by the biggest asteroid in the Belt. That has the Agency very worried that the Cadre intends something like the nuke they detonated on Venus.