“I expect they will. More importantly, according to the Guardians, the Starflyer will leave once it has arranged for our destruction. Unless we can move against it soon, it will have gone.”
“So just stop it going back to Far Away,” Mellanie said. “Put a guard on the Boongate gateway to Half Way.”
“I would have to convince my political allies such a move was justified.” Through the spindlefly’s artificial senses, Paula saw the girl standing outside their compartment.
Mellanie took a deep breath. “I know about some more Starflyer agents, if you’ll believe me this time.”
“You are very well informed.”
A focused disruptor field hit the compartment door, which instantly shattered. Mellanie screamed in shock, flinging herself down. Paula and Hoshe activated their force field skeletons. Isabella Halgarth stepped in through the dagger shards of the door frame. A force field sparkled around her.
“It’s her,” Mellanie yelled. “It’s Isabella! She’s one of them.”
Isabella raised her right arm. The flesh on her forearm flowed, parting in several places like lipless mouths.
Paula triggered the cage. Curving force field petals sprang out of the cases on each side of Isabella, closing around her and squeezing tight. She grimaced, as if mildly puzzled. Then she tried to move, squirming inside the constricting petals. Her movements were mechanical as each boosted muscle tried to push her body free. A series of apertures opened in her skin along both arms, allowing dark stubby muzzles to protrude. She started firing ion bolts and masers.
Streamers of energy lashed across the cage, grounding out in the floor of the compartment. Smoke began to leak upward. The shimmering petals slowly brightened to a threatening azure.
“Ready?” Paula shouted above the screech of the wild discharges. She held up a dump-web, and as Hoshe nodded she slapped it against Isabella’s back. The cage petals rearranged themselves to let it through. Her face was centimeters from the girl’s, and that was when she knew with absolute certainty they were confronting some kind of alien. Isabella’s eyes looked at her with malignant fury. Whatever intelligence stared through them was studying her, and judging.
Isabella’s force field failed.
Hoshe rammed a nervejam stick against her. It slipped easily through the cage petals to press against her chest. Her imprisoned body began to shake violently. She slowly peeled her lips back to reveal a furious snarl. All of her embedded weapons fired simultaneously. Sparks burst out of the gleaming cage petals as they began to whine dangerously.
“Jesus!” Hoshe exclaimed. He twisted the nervejam stick’s trigger to full power.
Isabella suddenly looked surprised, her eyes opening wide. Her weapons stopped firing.
The cage petals held her immobile, pressing tight against the skin, freezing her posture and expression. Paula looked at the girl’s feet. They were suspended a couple of centimeters off the smoldering carpet. “Is she out?”
“I don’t know,” a sweating Hoshe said. “But I’m not taking any chances.” He continued to push the nervejam stick hard against her.
“Okay.” Paula called the rest of the team in. Vic Russell, in full armor, clumped along the corridor, leading Matthew and John King.
“You get all the fun,” Vic complained.
“Next time, it’s all yours,” Hoshe said sincerely as Vic took over the nervejam stick.
With Isabella surrounded by the three armor suits, Hoshe switched the cage petals off. The girl crumpled into John’s arms.
“Is she alive?” Paula asked.
“Heart slightly erratic, but calming,” John assured her. “She’s breathing unaided.”
“Good, get her into the suspension shell.” Paula switched off her force field skeleton and ran a hand over her brow. She wasn’t surprised to find her fingers damp with perspiration.
“Just what the fuck is going on?” Mellanie yelled.
Paula turned to face the furious, frightened girl, and blinked in surprise. Mellanie’s skin had turned almost completely silver.
“It was an entrapment,” Paula said, trying to stay calm; she had no idea what Mellanie’s inserts were capable of. The only reassurance she had was that if Mellanie had been working for the Starflyer she would have pitched in with Isabella. “You and I have both been causing a considerable amount of trouble for the Starflyer. Together we presented what I hoped would be an irresistible target. I was correct. Although I was hoping it would be Tarlo they sent.”
“You!” Mellanie gasped the word out, a trembling finger pointed at Paula. “You. We. I. The police van. Everyone saw.”
“That is correct. Everyone saw us leaving the Greenford Tower together, and the event was released into the unisphere. This compartment was booked in my name. It gave them a perfect assassination opportunity.”
“I haven’t got a force field suit,” Mellanie wailed. The silver was fading from her skin, withdrawing in complex curling patterns.
“You were relatively safe. The cage is capable of absorbing high-level weapons fire from its captive.”
Mellanie sat down hard, staring at nothing. “You piece of shit. You could have told me.”
“I wasn’t completely sure of your loyalties. And I wanted you to behave in a natural fashion. I apologize for any alarm.”
“Alarm!” Mellanie appealed to Hoshe, who gave her a sorrowful little smile.
“And now,” Paula said, “would you please explain to me how you knew Isabella was a Starflyer agent?”
Justine arrived back in New York just after midnight eastern standard time. It was later than she expected; the War Cabinet session had overrun by an hour as they discussed the briefing from Wilson Kime. Seattle Project quantumbusters were now being carried on twenty-seven Moscow-class starships. The seventeen surviving ships in the Hell’s Gateway fleet were on their way back to the High Angel, where they’d also be equipped with quantumbusters once they were recharged.
Nobody knew if it would be sufficient to ward off any further Prime attacks. Even Dimitri Leopoldvich was being guarded with evaluations.
The War Cabinet was also undecided on carrying the fight back to the Primes. Sheldon, Hutchinson, and Columbia wanted to dispatch several ships to Dyson Alpha while the Primes remained ignorant of quantumbusters. Columbia believed they could inflict an incredible amount of destruction on the alien star system, hopefully weakening the Prime civilization catastrophically. A second wave of ships could then go in and finish the job, he said.
The genocide option again. Justine had taken their side, which had clearly surprised the remainder of the cabinet, including Toniea Gall, its newest member. She’d done it because of the Starflyer. Bradley Johansson had told her it wanted to destroy both species, that it was carefully playing them both off against each other so that it could rise victoriously in the ruins. Genocide was the only way she could see the Commonwealth surviving.
By contrast, Wilson hadn’t been keen, pointing out the sheer size of the Dyson Alpha civilization, the undoubted fact it had now spread to other star systems besides the Lost23 and Hell’s Gateway. The remnants could strike the Commonwealth equally hard, he claimed; we might trigger a double genocide.
“They’re trying to exterminate us anyway,” was Columbia’s reply.
If the genocide option was out for the immediate future, Alan Hutchinson said, then why not launch a second raid against Hell’s Gateway, this time using quantumbusters?
“You’ll be giving away our advantage,” Kime replied. “Quantumbusters are the only weapon we have that they don’t know about.”
“But if they work, we can stop the Prime advance completely, and push them off the Lost23,” the bluff Dynasty leader said. “They can’t launch a second wave against us without Hell’s Gateway. With that knocked out, we can go right ahead and take out their home system.”
“I don’t think we can afford to divert starships from defense right now,” Kime said. “When we have more in service, then such a course becomes viable
.”
Hutchinson clearly wasn’t happy. The rest of the War Cabinet was conscious of the growing rift between Kime and Columbia. President Doi closed the session by instituting an ongoing review. They would reconvene at any time the strategic situation changed.
As soon as they rose, Justine had taken an express straight back to New York with three aides and her Senate Security bodyguard team. The next morning had her scheduled to meet an informal group of Wall Street executives to discuss the worsening financial conditions brought on by increased taxes, the exodus, and the latest navy failure; the markets were in freefall, and they needed reassurance that the Executive was firmly in control with policies that would ultimately resolve the problem. As if I can convince them of that. At least Crispin would be with her at the working breakfast; she could rely on him for general support.
When the express pulled into Grand Central Station, her aides took a taxi to their hotel, while Justine was ferried to her Park Avenue apartment by a family limousine. As she got into the big car, her e-butler was tagging news reports from Illuminatus for her attention. She let some of them through her filters, and immediately sat up in the limo’s deep leather seating. Images of the Greenford Tower filled her virtual vision, with reporters covering the Tridelta fire department’s efforts to cope with the taxi that had exploded just outside. The civilian casualties were appalling.
“Call Paula Myo,” she told her e-butler.
“Senator?” Paula said.
“Are you all right?”
“So far, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“We have failed to capture any of the Starflyer agents we discovered in Tridelta. However, we have exposed one of its agents working in the navy intelligence Paris office. It will give you some valuable leverage to use with Admiral Columbia, and the Halgarths.”
“That’s excellent news.”
“Yes. I’m now initiating a further entrapment scenario involving myself and Mellanie Rescorai as we travel back to Earth; I hope that will be more successful.”
“Mellanie is with you?”
“Yes. She is getting very heavily involved in the anti-Starflyer movement. I suspect she is somehow involved with the Guardians.”
Justine nearly told her that Mellanie was in contact with Adam Elvin, but that would mean explaining how she was in touch with Johansson, and she wasn’t prepared to give that to the formidable Investigator, not yet. “Perhaps we should try and convene a meeting, pool our resources.”
“Very well, but I would like to establish Mellanie’s true sympathies. She could be a very elaborate trap for us set by the Starflyer.”
“As you wish. Let me know once you’re satisfied about her. Good luck, and be careful.”
“Thank you, Senator.”
The limousine drove down into the apartment block’s underground garage. Justine and her three bodyguards took the elevator up to the fortieth floor.
Despite the apartment’s new beefed-up security apparatus, the bodyguards insisted on doing a physical appraisal of all the rooms as well as reviewing the array logs. Justine stood in the big living room, waiting for them with an outward show of patience. It was the kind of social facade she’d learned centuries ago, but even so it was a strain tonight. Her feet ached from swelling ankles, she had heartburn that was becoming more frequent, her morning sickness was now lasting for fifteen hours a day, and she had a headache. Just get on with it, she thought darkly as they moved from room to room, taking their time, being professional and thorough.
“The apartment is clear, Senator,” Hector Del, the team commander, told her.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll be staying here with you tonight,” he said.
“Whatever, yes.” She went into her bedroom and shut the door just as the other two bodyguards left. The apartment’s housekeeper array had started to fill her big sunken tub as soon as the limo parked. It was now full to the brim with scented water, and foaming richly. Justine looked at it in exasperation and groaned. A decent wallow in the tub was the one thing she’d been looking forward to the whole journey home. She’d completely forgotten she shouldn’t be taking long hot baths when pregnant.
She hissed crossly and told her e-butler to switch the shower on. As the tub drained away she took her clothes off and left them on the floor for a maidbot to clear away. It is true, your brain packs up and goes on vacation when you’re pregnant.
The warm jets of water played over her skin. Nice, but not as nice as a good soak. Her e-butler pulled some twenty-second-century organic-synth jazz from the apartment memory, and played it at high volume as soap began to mix into the water.
Sheldon’s behavior during the War Cabinet had bothered her. She didn’t understand why he was so keen for the genocide. Unless he knew that it would provoke an equal reaction from the Primes. Which was what the Starflyer wanted. Or am I being really paranoid? The only evidence against him was Thompson saying that his office had continually blocked the examination of cargo to Far Away, something Justine was still unable to confirm.
She wiped an exfoliator sponge across her legs and stomach as the foamy water sluiced over her. Red icons flashed into her virtual vision. INTRUDER ALERT. The newly installed alarm system showed her a dark image of an unidentified person walking through the kitchen.
How the hell did they get in there without triggering a perimeter alarm?
She wiped the water frantically from her face and reached for a towel.
SENATOR, Hector Del sent, PLEASE DO NOT EXPOSE YOURSELF. I AM INVESTIGATING NOW. THE REST OF THE TEAM IS RETURNING IMMEDIATELY.
Her heart was pounding wildly, which was exacerbating her headache. She wrapped the towel around her waist and hurried out into the bedroom, dripping all over the carpet. On the other side of the door, Hector Del shouted: “You. Halt. Now!”
There was the high-pitched crack of a weapon discharge, which made her jump in shock. It was swiftly followed by two louder blasts. A man screamed. There was a crash. Something heavy thudded onto the floor as white light flared through the gap under the door.
HECTOR? Justine sent. WHAT HAPPENED?
Her virtual vision showed her the bodyguard’s inserts had dropped their link to the apartment’s array. She put her hand on the door handle. Hesitated. There was no sound on the other side. When she tried to access the apartment’s security net, it reported that a very powerful jamming signal was interfering with the sensors. Her e-butler told her the bodyguard team was in the elevator, coming back up.
Justine opened the door a crack and peered out into the apartment’s central corridor. It was dark, with light shining in from the hallway at the far end. Thin stands of smoke layered the air; some flames were licking up from the smashed remnants of an antique table. Hector Del was crumpled against the wall, his clothes smoldering, skin red and blotchy. From the angle of his neck she knew he was dead.
Someone stepped into the hall’s archway.
“Bruce!” Justine gasped.
The Starflyer assassin raised his arm.
Justine wailed in terror, hands instinctively clutching at her belly, protecting the unborn.
The corridor’s ceiling ruptured in a cloud of dust and concrete fragments as it was hit by a powerful focused disruptor field. Gore Burnelli dropped through the rent to land lightly between Justine and Bruce. He looked very dapper in a perfectly tailored tuxedo. “Hey, pal,” he said to Bruce, “want to try picking on someone your own size for a change?”
Both of Bruce’s arms were raised. A near-solid torrent of plasma bolts struck Gore, cocooning him in an incandescent nimbus. His tuxedo burst into flames. The floor and walls around him started to blacken. Justine shielded her face from the fearsome light.
Bruce lowered his arms. Gore stood in a circle of scorched concrete that was edged in flame, the last ashes of his ruined clothes dropping from him. His naked body was completely gold, reflecting the flames in little orange ripples. He smiled waspishly. “My turn.” He sta
rted walking toward Bruce. A focused disrupter pulse slammed out from him, filling the corridor’s smoky air with a ghost-green phosphorescence. Bruce’s force field flashed purple as he staggered backward from the blow. He struggled to stand upright. Gore fired another pulse that knocked the assassin off his feet and sent him skidding back across the hall’s polished parquet flooring, arms and legs waving like an upturned turtle. He rolled himself onto his front, and scurried away.
“Come back and play, motherfucker,” Gore called. He sped along the corridor and into the living room after Bruce. Plasma bolts, maser beams, and ion bolts hit him as soon as he was through the open doorway. Wild ribbons of energy exploded around him as his integral force field deflected the assault, sending them lashing into the building’s structure. The strength of the attack started to push him back as if a watercannon was striking him head-on. He expanded the force field behind him, pressing it up against the wall to hold himself against the power of the assassin’s weapons. His feet halted their backward slide as the wall cracked and bent inward. Another focused disruptor shot at Bruce’s legs sent the assassin tumbling over again. The assassin hit the wall beside the balcony doors as the glass shattered across him. He rebounded and assumed a wrestler’s crouch. Gore jumped.
The two of them collided in a maelstrom of whirling energy streamers and disintegrating furniture. Gore’s nerves were saturated with accelerants, speeding up his reflexes as he chopped at the assassin with a series of karate blows that would have sliced an unprotected body into pieces. The impacts couldn’t quite reach through Bruce’s force field, though Gore saw the telltale scarlet flicker of an approaching overload each time he connected. He was managing to inflict a degree of harm on the body it enveloped, though it was hardly debilitating. Bruce’s face grimaced silently in the bursts of red light. His own nervous system was accelerated, but not as fast as Gore’s. He never quite managed to block the chops. As the force field weakened, it left his clothes exposed. Cloth either tore as Gore’s hand ripped across it or singed from the residue of weapons fire. Then Bruce twisted around, and managed to kick Gore’s legs with a savage judo lunge.
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 175
