Torchship Captain

by Karl K Gallagher

  The officer barked again. The second volley tore into the middle of the protestors. A few of the survivors broke out of their shock to start running as the third volley hit them.

  More orders turned the formation to the left. It advanced at a slow march. The news report changed to a split screen. One side showed the Protectors proceeding through the spaceport’s main gate. The other, crippled survivors crawling over piles of torn flesh.

  “We heard about this,” said Mitchie, “but assessed it as a rumor because there wasn’t any confirmation. Where the hell has this report been?”

  Guen answered, “A trader brought it in four days ago. We asked them not to share it.”

  “You’re censoring the news?”

  “Not censoring. We just . . . asked for a delay.”

  Mitchie laughed. “Guen, when you say ‘please pass the salt’ everyone hears ‘or I’ll send you to the guillotine.’ Asking is censorship.”

  “We’re going to release it when the first battleship is on line. Then the mob will feel safe instead of panicking and burning down the Sinophone neighborhoods.”

  Guo was still contemplating the video. “I bet they’re going to put Mandarin speakers in all key positions. They’re exploiting the fault lines inside the Sinophone community.”

  “Not my problem,” said Guen. “I need that battleship. How soon will it be ready, Admiral?”

  “We’ll be at initial operational capability this week, ma’am,” answered Selig. “She’ll be able to help defend the system. The Dread will need a couple of months to get her crew trained to where she can participate in offensive operations.”

  “Try to speed that up. I want to take the offensive against the Harmony before they commit many more massacres like that.” Guen shifted her gaze from Selig to Mitchie. “And once we’ve crushed them the entire fleet can go fight the Betrayers.”

  Three days later

  Taking his wife out to the Capitol’s suburbs cost Hiroshi some extra keys but it was worth it. Walking through a shopping district with no visible riot damage and no thugs loitering about was relaxing for Setta.

  “So are we going anywhere in particular?” she asked.

  “No, just exploring. I thought we’d have dinner then see what else there is around.”

  Someone was coming toward them in a bright fuchsia jacket and lemon pants. Stipend kid clothes. But just one wasn’t a threat.

  “Think there’s a place with spicy food?”

  “I’m sure it’s spicy for me.”

  The stipend kid stepped into their path. “Sir, ma’am, please support the Committee for Public Safety.”

  She shoved a flyer into Hiroshi’s hands. He lifted it to his face to cover the shock of recognition. This was Ensign Jones, one of their undercover agents.

  “The Committee is protecting you from the mobs by restoring order. They need your support to have new elections for honest Stakeholders to replace the ones who lied us into this mess.”

  “I’m all for new elections,” said Hiroshi. He needed not to say anything that might break her cover.

  “The Committee is working hard for you. They’re restoring system monitoring as fast as possible to prevent rogue AIs from forming.”

  “Oh, good,” he said.

  Setta interrupted the propaganda pitch. “Are you eating enough, child?”

  Jones outranked Setta and was only a year younger—but her head came only to Setta’s nose and she was scruffy enough to pass for a teen.

  “I have a good meal waiting for me when I’m done passing these out,” said the undercover agent.

  Setta took another flyer. “Thank you. We will support the Committee.”

  Jones nodded and moved on in search of her next target.

  “You think mint is spicy,” said Setta. “Let’s keep looking until we find someplace the food has taste.”

  They held onto the flyers and headed in search of dinner. There were too many observers about to discuss the encounter until they were back at the spaceport.

  Nine days later

  Joshua Chamberlain, Capitol Spaceport, Pintoy, gravity 9.4 m/s2

  “Ma’am, is this Ensign Jones?” asked Spacer Ye.

  Mitchie looked at the image on the spacer’s datasheet. It was the ensign, asleep. No, dead. The peaceful face was belied by the “Do you know this woman?” caption. The seal of the Capitol Police Department rested in the corner. “Yes, it’s her. Do you have any more information?”

  “No, I was looking for trending news and that popped up.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.”

  ***

  This police station had survived the riots unscathed, or been thoroughly cleaned up. Some chipping on the entryway floor pointed toward the latter. The desk sergeant watched Mitchie approach. His bored expression didn’t change.

  “I’m Michigan Long, the Disconnected Worlds Liaison to the Committee of Public Safety.” The last few words put everyone on alert, including the civilians sitting on the foyer bench.

  “Yes, ma’am. How can we be of service?” said the desk sergeant.

  “I’m here to see your Jane Doe.” Mitchie turned her datasheet to him to display Jones’ picture.

  Someone in a more formal uniform, ascot and flowing collar, approached. “I’m Major Tong. I’ll take you down to the morgue, ma’am.” As they descended the stairs he asked, “Did you recognize her?”

  “No. But if she’s not in your database I thought she must be a Disker.”

  “A few months ago that would have been true . . . but we didn’t have enough backups to keep our data intact.”

  “I understand.”

  The morgue wasn’t as chilly as she feared. An attendant stood by a sheet-covered gurney.

  “Let’s see her,” ordered Tong.

  The sheet pulled back to reveal Ensign Jones in a new set of stipend kid fashions. Mitchie pulled out her datasheet and scrolled through images of the Diskers who’d contacted her wanting a ride off this planet. “She’s not on my list. And those are local clothes. But they’re new. Let’s check something.”

  Flipping up the other end of the sheet revealed spacer boots. “Those have some wear on them.”

  The attendant blocked her hands from the boots. “Allow me, ma’am.” She deftly unlaced one and wiggled it off the foot.

  Mitchie took it and checked the markings inside. “This was made on Bonaventure. She’s one of mine, then.” She handed the boot back. “What happened to her?”

  Tong rolled the body onto its side. A bullet wound showed clearly on the back of skull. Burns surrounded the hole. “Looks like it was a standard self-defense pistol. They’re supposed to upload imagery and fingerprints of the user, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “Not your fault. I presume this had to be intentional?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. There’s no evidence of a struggle. The body was cleaned before we found it. And she was left in a park. Could’ve been murdered on the other side of the city from here. Clearly premeditated, likely took an organized group.”

  “I wonder who she pissed off.” Dammit. Professor Corday understands security, and he’s as vicious about that as everything else.

  “If we find anything on the case, we’ll be sure to let you know,” said Major Tong.

  “What would you like us to do with the body, ma’am?” asked the morgue attendant.

  “Cremation would be simplest . . . but I should check with her family. Sending the picture to Bonaventure and identifying her would probably take months. How long can you hold the body?”

  “For a friend of the Committee we will spare no effort,” said Tong.

  “I can analyze her DNA and give you an identification dataset,” offered the attendant.

  “Yes, that would be very helpful, thank you. Please hold her until I find out the family’s wishes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Walking out of the station into the sunlight didn’t take the chill off. Mitchie started walking back towa
rd the spaceport. A scruffy man approached on the sidewalk, staring at the ground. Then he looked up to meet her eyes for an instant before looking down again.

  Damn, what's his name? The figure had been in her year at Intelligence School. Marven, that’s it.

  Marven circled around her on the sidewalk with a muttered, “’Scuse me.”

  Not a brush pass. But he's trying to make contact. She spotted a piece of paper wedged between bricks in the police station’s corner. Scratching her back against the corner let her pocket it.

  The feel of the paper in her pocket burned at her but she wasn’t going to open this until she was sure she was in private.

  ***

  It said only, “Surveyor Park. Like the drizzly March Tuesday.” If she remembered the training exercise Marven meant correctly the dead drop would be under a park bench. One was in roughly the same position as the one she’d trained on. She sat on it and read her datasheet for a quarter hour before standing. A seeming accidental drop of the datasheet let her reach under the bench as she picked it up. One message item. Successful exercise, ten points.

  Back on the ship she checked the crystal. Encrypted, as it should be. She dropped the task of opening it on Guo with a few catchphrases from her class to start with.

  Then it was time to break the news about Jones to her crew. Afterwards she passed around a whiskey bottle and shot glasses. “Space is wide and good friends are too few.” They echoed her and drank.

  Guo looked up as Mitchie came into their cabin. “Perfect timing.” He copied a few more lines from a messy worksheet onto a clean copy.

  She read through it. “Straight forward meet. What was the password?”

  “It was ‘got an eraser.’ Okay, what’s so funny?”

  Mitchie stopped laughing. “Punchline of an old joke.”

  He looked expectant.

  “Right. Miner is taking a shuttle flight. He’s a real foul-mouthed guy, every other word out of his mouth is fuck or shit. A priest sits down next to him. Miner has enough manners to not want to cuss in front of a priest. He nods, priest nods back, priest takes out a paper crossword puzzle and starts working on it. Miner’s happy, he won’t have to say a fucking word all flight.

  “Halfway there the priest gets stuck. He asks the miner, ‘What’s a four letter word for woman, ending U-N-T?’ Miner panics. He doesn’t want to say that word to a priest. He prays silently, ‘God, please don’t make me say that.’

  “And God answered his prayer. Miner says, ‘Aunt. A-U-N-T.’ Priest says, ‘Oh, of course. Got an eraser?’”

  “Heh. So why is it a password?”

  “It became our official class euphemism. We used it a lot.”

  Guo shook his head. “Aren’t officers supposed to behave better than that?”

  “Nice people don’t volunteer as covert intelligence operatives.”

  “Heidi was nice.”

  Mitchie poured herself a cup of plum wine. “Yes, she was. I should have realized she wouldn’t cut it. Not let her go out and get killed.” She drank half the cup.

  “You couldn’t have known she’d fail. And you didn’t know Corday’s people were that rough.”

  “Oh, no, why would I have guessed that Professor Guillotine would be willing to commit a secret murder? All the thousands of people he killed lost their heads in public.”

  Guo kept his voice level. “You needed the information. You still do.”

  “Yeah. Next decision is whether to pull Chief Morgan out.” Mitchie drained the cup.

  “He’ll be fine. He’s a total asshole.”

  She laughed.

  ***

  Mitchie saw Marven walk up to the edge of the duck pond. A few of the park’s fat ducks paddled toward him to see if he’d offer anything interesting. He tossed something into the water, producing wing-flaps and splashes as they raced for it.

  Her stroll along the water’s edge brought her to him. “Hi.”

  “Hello, Commander,” said Marven. “Congratulations on surviving your many adventures.”

  “Thank you. Congratulations on surviving the events here.”

  More ducks were arriving, quacking at each other to get out of the way. The noise should interfere with any eavesdroppers. He tossed out some more to encourage them.

  “Is the stuff the news says about you true?”

  “About three-quarters of it. As usual.” Mitchie held out a cupped hand.

  He poured his bag into it. It wasn’t bread. They were green wafers, with raised lettering declaring they were ideal nutrition for ducks and most waterfowl. She tossed one into the mob of ducks, sparking more commotion.

  “Now the important question. Who the hell appointed you the Disconnected Worlds ambassador to the new government?”

  “Liaison. Nobody did. I’m senior officer present. Unless you’ve been promoted?”

  “No, I’m still a lieutenant senior-grade. I haven’t been grandstanding in front of admirals.”

  Mitchie bit back an angry retort. She needed Marven’s willing cooperation. “There’s a destroyer on the way to Bonaventure and a squadron carrying my report to Combined Fleet Command. Until orders or a new boss return from either one, I’m it. We can’t ignore this mess. What if some demagogue convinces them to go attack the Disconnect?”

  Marven threw more wafers to the ducks as he contemplated that. “What are your orders, ma’am?”

  “Start with a status report.”

  “There are five of us with solid covers. We have separate safe houses and homes for our covers. We have lots of data on the Fusion Navy, which the Combined Fleet now has from the Fuzies. We collected lots of data on Stakeholders who’ve since been burned alive, beheaded, or fled the planet.”

  “Anything on Guen Claret?” asked Mitchie. A double-check on her personal assessment would be useful.

  “She had zero seniority and the Dynamist party had hardly any clout so we didn’t bother. Now it’s too dangerous to try to get close to her. Or anyone on the Committee of Public Safety. As both your agents found.”

  “Both?”

  “The other fought his way out of an ambush. Killed three of Corday’s men, wounded two, and broke contact. We found him and took him to a safe house.”

  “Good for Chief Morgan. How is he?”

  Marven shrugged. “He’ll be back on duty in a couple of weeks. When he gets home he’ll need a chunk of lung and some intestine regrown.”

  “That may be a while. What are your current collection targets?”

  “You and your amateurs. We’ve mostly been sitting tight. Figuring out how to make contact without blowing our cover was hard.” Marven sounded resentful.

  Mitchie tossed more to the ducks as she thought. “The primary target is Professor Corday. He instigated the CPS and most of its atrocities. We need to know what his goal is and if it’s a threat to the Disconnected Worlds. Second goal is to detect any agents from Ping’s Harmony.”

  That provoked a burst of laughter from Marven. “Not asking much, are you?”

  “The good news is I can get you support staff. As you said, amateurs, but they’re loyal Diskers with security clearances. You can staff up the safe houses and stop being your own janitor.”

  “That’d help.” He up-ended the bag to shake broken wafers over the ducks. “But you’re asking us to go to the well too many times.”

  “We’re all going to the well too often, Lieutenant Marven. All of us.”

  Chapter Five: Conspiracy

  Six days later

  Capitol City, Pintoy, gravity 9.4 m/s2

  “Enjoy yourselves,” said Mitchie as she closed the door.

  The hotel hallway was empty. She started walking toward the elevator. Giving Guo and Guen privacy left her at loose ends for a few hours. She had no idea what to do. They were only in the hotel for the weekend because Guen feared her frequent visits to their ship would look suspicious.

  On the ground floor the elevator faced the bar. She walked straight in and took a stool
. The menu gave everything “revolutionary” names. She ordered a “Head In a Basket.”

  It was rum and fruit juice. Mitchie drank it slowly. Married life had cut down her alcohol consumption. She wasn’t used to something with this much of a kick any more.

  The bartender made eye contact once. Then he polished glasses at the far end of the bar. Do I look that cranky? I guess I am that cranky.

  Six empty bar stools made a line between Mitchie and the next customer. Someone sat down on the one next to her. “Buy me a drink, sugar?”

  Mitchie said, “You’re dialing the wrong number.”

  “You’re ignoring the boys. I thought you might be in the mood for some . . . girl talk.”

  She looked the whore up and down. “Thanks, but I couldn’t afford you.”

  “A cutie like you I’d give a discount to.” The stranger studied Mitchie’s face. “You look like you need to vent.”

  Sigh. “You’re right. But you’re not a therapist.”

  “I keep secrets better than they do.”

  That broke her resistance. Mitchie shoved her glass away. “Let’s do it. This place have any good wine?”

  The whore waved at the bartender. “Franz. Bottle of house Merlot.”

  He looked to Mitchie. When she nodded he produced a bottle.

  They exited the elevator on the eighth floor, only halfway to where Guo was introducing Guen to ecstasy.

  The whore said, “I’m Iroth,” as she closed the door behind them. “You’re welcome to cry on my shoulder, or whatever else you like.”

  “I’m Michigan.”

  Iroth took two wine goblets out of a cupboard. “You do have the look. But if you’re going to pick a fake name it’s better to use one that other people aren’t already copying.”

  Mitchie didn’t argue. She pulled her Space Guard identification card out of her pocket and handed it over.