Lord Banshee- Fugitive

by Russell O Redman

  “Oddly, all the other ships in the Martian fleet are telling them to stand down and get back in formation. I think they are worried that the TDF is not as toothless as they had hoped.

  “Oh, they have launched three missiles, a whole volley to start with. Maybe they recognize that the Hammerhead has been damaged?”

  I watched in horror as three missiles raced away from the Martian warship. Most of our tactical displays blanked as the Mao retracted its external sensors in anticipation of nuclear blasts from the three warheads. One small optical telescope was being sacrificed to record the event, so Raul popped up a closer view of the Hammerhead. The ship, blotched with random patches of glue bugs, continued to climb as though nothing was wrong. When the missiles were a quarter of the way between the two ships, the Hammerhead tucked its own comm antenna indoors and popped out three laser pods. All three warheads detonated. Somehow the tough little telescope survived. We could see that one of the pods on the Hammerhead did not retract, probably their one original pod, still partially coated with glue bugs. Begum and her engs had got it working well enough to take the shot, but it would be scrap when they reached the Moon. The Hammerhead continued as though it had just cleared a trio of hazardous rocks, making no further comment.

  The Martian fleet commander was apoplectic, ordering the errant ship to get back into formation before he had the entire crew convicted of treason and executed in public. There was a sudden babble of voices from the rogue ship, followed by a curt apology for breaking formation and an agreement to return to their assigned position. Evidently, there had been a forcible change of command within the ship. As the rogue turned to move back into formation, the Martian commander submitted a grovelling apology to Admiral Wang for this gross breach of orders, since the entire purpose of their arrival was to bring assistance to the earth stations.

  As my heart started to beat at a normal rate again, I became aware that Doctors Tran, Marin and Toyami were all clustered behind me with what looked like sedatives.

  Raul commented, “Warhead yield far less than a megaton each, one of them barely fifty kilotons, but they held enough fissile material for ten megatons each. Even detonating so far from their target, they could have caused a lot of damage. The lasers must have destroyed their geometry before they could properly explode. With such low yields, the EMP did not even damage our active antennae and telescopes.

  “They will have watched the Mao fire four missiles, two each ahead and behind us, as the iron rain was approaching. Each produced a clean explosion from a five-megaton warhead. Those four flashes told us we were dealing with iron rods and gave us the full three-dimensional structure of the incoming cloud. The Martians will have recognized our intent, and thought we had weapons to spare. To them we must look powerful and confident, the TDF of legend that tore the last Martian fleet into radioactive shreds.

  “I am mildly surprised that we got the comm between the commander and the attacker. It was sent over an encrypted channel but using an old encryption from the end of the Incursion that we broke within a week of its introduction. They ought to have chosen a new one by now or switched to the standard library. Bunch of amateurs.”

  If I guessed correctly from her conversation, Begum had a Buddhist background. Hoping the Buddha would listen to vermin like me, I prayed that her soul could achieve nirvana. It must have been severely damaged by a career in the TDF, but today she had performed with a precise, delicate touch. She had responded to a fanatical challenge with a gentle plaint of disappointed friendship, had stopped the enemy attack without harming any of her crew or theirs, not even burning the paint on their ships, and had turned the broken hulk of the Hammerhead into a symbol of confident power that intimidated the Martian fleet into cautious friendship. I was awestruck and bitterly wished we had had such commanders during the Incursion.

  I swallowed a few times until I could speak again. “God bless her, she did it. God bless her crew. God forgive me, but I told Admiral Wang that she needed a few days separation from Raul. Forgive me Raul, but if he had placed anyone else on that ship, I fear that we would be fighting a battle right now that the TDF would lose.”

  I took another breath, and another. “Forgive me. I usually keep my worship to myself these days. I really miss being a spacer.”

  Raul looked at me oddly. “I have been receiving our battle readiness reports from Wang. Even as badly damaged as we are right now, we have enough working weapons that we could have taken on that fleet and won.”

  I shook my head. “No, we could not. You surely do not believe those were the only ships they have? We would have lost most of the ships in earth orbit. How many would we have when the rest of their fleet arrives? After that battle, how many would be left to take on a fresh wave of pirates coming from their bases in the Belt or wherever they are? I expect we will need the whole TDF and the Martian fleets combined to face the next wave of pirates.

  “Do not forget the stealth ships that must be in orbit around the Earth by now. They have enough fire power to destroy the earth stations whenever they want. We can fix one round of iron rain, but suppose they do it every day?

  “And those are just the forces we know are in space near the Earth. What do they have at L1? At L2? Near Mars itself, or on the way? What do they already have on the ground, waiting for the Emperor to decide that Mars is secure and that the time has come to claim suzerainty over all human space? I know my vision is bleaker than most people’s, but that is because I know what Mars can do when it puts in the effort. If we start that war, we will lose it.

  “Let me remind you that we in this team will lose far more than most other people, because all of you are unavoidably Ghost Followers, subject to public execution when they find us. Ask Sergei what that means, or Raul, who watched the near execution of Governor Kigali yesterday.

  “I still believe that you will escape that fate if we draw the venom from the Martian vipers before they strike, but if they come in angry, seeking revenge for recent grievances, then we will all die badly.

  “For myself, I am without hope, their grievances are too old, too deep and too well justified. I will be executed with an absolute certainty. I have known that all along. I have a plan, however, and I truly believe I know how to save the rest of you if you can stay hidden long enough.

  “I must make this one plea. Leilani has worked with me so long that she will be called the Ghost Wife. Under Martian justice, she will be subject to the same death that I deserve. But she is innocent! You must promise me, all of you, that you will keep Leilani safe and hidden. And Leilani, promise me that you will not try to save my life, because my death is inevitable. I can use that death to save you, or I can waste my time trying to stay alive for a few useless years after which we will both lose everything. I beg of you, all of you, make me that promise!”

  I recognized the look of rising horror in their faces, and then one of the doctors hit me with a sedative. I dropped asleep without hearing their answers.

  2357-03-06 22:00

  A Walk in the Park

  I did not stay asleep long, but I feared Doctor Tran was right; I was going to have to refill my medical monitor when we got to the Moon, because I was burning through its reserves at a fearful rate. Trying to calm myself again, I lay on the floor, listening to them talk as they tried to decide what to do.

  Raul told them about the near-execution of Kigali, which had been commuted to eternal slavery at the last moment. He mentioned that I had made a copy of the stream in the MI office and suspected that Kigali was saying something different in Russian than the translator was saying in Mandarin. I heard Katerina say that she would fetch the recording and analyze it, having done similar tasks in previous hostage-taking operations.

  Evgenia confirmed that I had made similar statements yesterday, trying to explain to Morris and Singh what was likely to happen. I had been calmer at the time and she was not sure why I had become more excited today. She remained confident that I was the most far-sighted member o
f the team and the one most likely to find a way out of the crisis. She also thought that promising to protect Leilani was almost the same as promising to protect themselves, not an oath to be taken lightly, but one they ought to take anyways. If it gave poor Brian some peace to think more clearly, she was willing to take it as soon as I woke up.

  Bless the dear girl. I still did not understand what she saw in me.

  There was a general murmur of assent, missing only Leilani’s voice. I cracked an eye open and realized that I was looking directly at her. She was staring at me with the horror of a new bride whose wedding photos show her embracing a corpse. When she saw my eyelids move, she rushed over, swept me into her arms and ordered me, demanded, begged me never to say such a thing again. One by one, the other team members came over and promised to keep her safe and hidden. Only Leilani refused to take the oath.

  Maybe it was just the sedative, but with each oath I felt better, calmer, readier to face the day’s events. I told everyone about the new comm channel I had created just for us, and one by one they accepted the channel and passed a few messages back and forth. When Leilani accepted the channel, I told her privately that my only regret with this channel is that I could not send her a giant, full-intensity kiss emoji, so she gave me a giant, full-intensity real kiss that finally made everyone else hoot and whistle. Looking around, though, they were all closer to tears than to laughter, and for the next hour they all looked scared to touch me or even get close, as though I had become fragile, or radioactive.

  Sergei asked if I was going to tell them the great plan and whether it was going to be better than group sex, which he was starting to like as a weapon of war. I shushed him, telling them all that it was too soon and too many details remained unresolved. Several people glared at him and told him to be quiet, possibly understanding that I had already told them what the final detail had to be.

  Marin came over and handed me a breakfast bulb, boring and bland compared to my usual choices, but this morning I would not object. She told me it was full of mood stabilizers, which I obviously needed.

  Watching the screens, it was clear to all of us that the transports taking marines to the earth stations from the other TDF ships would arrive before the Martian fleet, but that the Mao would arrive at the Khrushchev after the first Martian warships. We would be arriving at an earth station occupied by our enemies.

  Everyone was under strict orders to be friendly, grateful, welcoming, comradely. It was hard to know how that would play out in the face of grandstanding and fanaticism on the part of the Martians. Nor was it clear who would greet us. Many of the senior staff on the earth stations, including the TDF officers in the ESK, had barely had time to recover from the emoji attack. Some never would.

  I was just recovering from my morning fright when I was surprised by a call from Admiral Wang, which I noted also went to Leilani. There was an unanticipated problem. The delegates under threat of assassination had assembled in the large MI R&R and CI T&A facilities in the box. They were ready for transport, but the staff in R&R and T&A were fearful that Martian troops would inspect the passengers and arrest anyone who tried to shelter them. The two infirmaries had declared they would not open the doors to anyone who was not MI and CI, respectively, until the delegates had left.

  We were the only two on board the Mao who qualified. He no longer trusted anyone from MI on the ESK, and the CI employees he could contact were mostly in T&A already or locked in their airtight rooms. He asked if we were willing to accompany the marines who would carry the bags of delegates through the station.

  Our official cover was that the transports were evacuating people injured in the meteor shower. Since most of the people equipped to move in vacuum were still in their airtight rooms, the Mao was sending two teams of unarmed orderlies to assist in the evacuation. The commander had accepted the excuse without comment, but obviously would recognize it as a diplomatic fiction to extract sensitive people. We could expect hostile scrutiny, but the delegates remaining on the ESK were mostly advisors and functionaries, hardly likely to be high priority targets even if they were on the assassination list. Our only role would be to persuade the staff to open the doors into the infirmaries. Otherwise, we should remain inconspicuous members of the team.

  This was a horrendous risk that he had never intended but needed to solve immediately; the transports were preparing to load already.

  We had to do this, to prevent a massacre. On the station, I was sure I would be pure intellect, totally rational. What he asked was mostly theatre, pretending to be unimportant. The Student had enjoyed amateur theatre. The Assassin and the Ghost had started with that small skill and mastered the deceptive arts. Our current orders were to be friendly and cooperative. Obedience to orders was really the Assassin’s approach; with these orders, even he might be helpful. If only Governor Ngomo had ever issued such orders.

  Leilani was close to panic again, an expression I had never seen on her face when we were hunting criminals. I could feel the Ghost taking control again, guiding me through what needed to be done. My heart stabilized, my thoughts focused on the mission to be completed, and I suddenly felt refreshed. Right now, for Leilani’s sake, I needed to be reassuring, and the Ghost allowed my face to remain Brian, the Cripple, filled with love and concern.

  I took her by the shoulders, looked straight into her eyes, and swore that I would do nothing stupid or provocative. I reminded her that the entire plan, such as it was, required her and the team to survive. We were in a single warship surrounded by enemies, far too vulnerable to take foolish risks.

  We would take maybe half an hour to get to the ESK, twenty minutes through deserted streets to get to MI and CI, ten minutes to get the delegates out the door, and another forty minutes to get back home. We would be back in less than two hours, in time for an early lunch. We would be wearing armour, with masks inside the helmets to alter our appearance a bit. Only the guards at MI and CI would need to know who we were, and after that it would be someone else’s problem. We would at worst require a little friendly theatre to walk past the Martian soldiers. Theatre I could handle. It would be easy.

  Reluctantly, she agreed, so we suited up, pulled the masks over our faces and slipped on the helmets. We set the masks so our faces looked almost like they had before we came aboard the Mao. We wanted our workmates from the Mao to recognize us, but to be different enough that other people might be deceived.

  We assembled on the dock into two teams, one to accompany Leilani, and the other to escort me. Each team had the required Com and Nav, with two marines in powered armour but no weaponry.

  This was going to be a different kind of evac than we had attempted on the Manila Bay. I scanned the list of refugees, forty of them in total, including the five former members of our Fairy Dust team in CI, the most endangered delegates, plus three more doctors from CI and two from MI. They were already in medical comas and clipped onto stretchers in the two infirmaries. We were bringing collapsible frames encased in large, opaque bags. The stretchers could be stacked five deep in each frame, so each team would need four bags to carry its whole complement of escapees.

  Normally, each transport could carry only ten marines, but that assumed each marine carried a full weapons rack and needed room to move around. Since the delegates were in a coma, they could be packed in much more tightly. With no weapons, we would just barely fit that many people in the two transports. It would be spacious going, but claustrophobic coming back.

  I flashed Leilani a thumbs-up and called across on the new comm channel. “I am sorry I scared you this morning. We normally have more time to prepare for an operation and to assemble some real backup but remember everyone is supposed to be friendly. Imagine you are taking back some bags of used clothes to exchange. We can say we are unimportant maintenance workers authorized to enter each infirmary, which is close enough to the truth given that all we are doing is unlocking doors and moving bags around. We have armour because we normally work outside and it
has a different colour because it is new, a custom set for our team. Both those statements are true. Otherwise, let us keep our conversations short and polite. No extravagant lies, which they can probably detect. Relax, it will be a walk in the park.”

  It seemed unnatural for me to be trying to reassure Leilani before a mission. It had almost always been the other way around. But then, before this week I had almost never let her see the Ghost, with his long-running plans and ruthless adaptability. That might have been part of what was scaring her. He sure scared me, even when I was being the Ghost.

  The Mao did not have enough working transports, so Wang had borrowed two from the ESK Commerce pool; he clearly did not trust any part of MI. I smiled to myself; flight crews on the earth stations slept within arm’s reach of their armour and would have been suited up before the iron rain even hit. It was a pity that the Commerce flight crews were not part of CI and were not authorized to enter T&A. They must have spent their time patching holes until our urgent request for help arrived. The transports had come out to meet us before we reached our station next to the Khrushchev, but the Mao would be waiting on station by the time we got back.

  I waved to Leilani again as we packed in and the doors shut. There were never windows on spaceships, and the Com was not inclined to pop up useless displays during an operation, but I knew the intended approach. We only had the one transport bay on the north-south axis, nominally because the others were inoperative, but I was sure the real reason was to give ESK StaSec fewer moving targets in case something went wrong. We would go in one by one, with Leilani’s team disembarking first. Her transport would exit the other end of the axis and my transport would repeat the process. The Martian warships masquerading as freighters could use the two normal berths that were still active. Out of courtesy, Wang told us they had agreed to refrain from using the axis while we were entering and leaving.