“We’ll drink to her memory, you and me. I’ve got a bottle of genuine Cuban rum in my stash. Remorra would die for it. I mean, if she could die again.” Isabel bit her tongue. This wasn’t how she wanted to sound. Sensitivity wasn’t her strong suit.
“I knew it! You were holding out on me!” Instead of slumping at the mention of her mentor’s demise, Nadie showed a sliver of her sense of humour. That was exactly what Isabel wanted to bring out in her.
“Colonial grog suits you, miss freedom fighter.”
“Colonial grog is kerosene and arsenic.”
“Isn’t that the perfect match for you and your crazy all-gal squadron?” Isabel made another mistake, this one unconscious. Nadie’s face clouded all over.
“The Widows are no more.”
“What, they too?” This should not have been a revelation to Isabel. The resistance was dead. Why not their greatest weapon as well?
“It’s not what you think,” Nadie shrugged, trying to find the right words. “We went separate ways. Without the Major... There wasn’t much holding us together anymore.”
“That’s just crab!” Isabel clapped her friend on the shoulder. “Anyway, their loss is my gain. How about you join me as co-pilot? The seat suits you.”
“The seat hurts my butt.”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“I know what it was,” Nadie wriggled in the chair anyway. It made creaking sounds but held admirably. “Your offer. Normally I’d say that just serves you. But it might be the best of both worlds for us today.”
“I mean for reals, friend. Stay here where you belong, permanent, till death do us part, front, back, left, right and centre. Rocarion and Chu, roaming through space. We will be unstoppable. The new dynamic duo.”
“If that’s some old Earth reference, you and Rhys will get on just fine.”
“Let’s not bring dredge fuzz into this.”
“What did you just call him?”
“Dredge fuzz. You know. The stuff that gums up the... dredge?” Isabel blinked. She could get away with blinking thanks to those big round glasses perched on her nose.
Nadie drew back, if ever so slightly. “That’s harsh even for you.”
“What can I say? I don’t like the looks of him.” Isabel smirked. “But let’s not get side-tracked without need. You and I, together on the Anvil. What do you say?”
“Just the two of us?”
“Just the two of us.”
A big grin coloured Nadie’s lips. “I’m the better pilot.”
“Maybe in a million years, when I’m retired and herding cats for sport.”
“I thought you wanted to retire after the war’s finished.”
“Plans can change. What do you say, friend? Ready to go independent with me and make some serious dosh?”
Nadie stared at the view past the window. Isabel couldn’t tell what she was thinking but she had a hunch they were getting close to something like a verbal agreement. Then life interrupted. Life always stands in the way of great things coming about.
“That’s a small bunch of Earth ships ahead,” Nadie said and covered her open mouth in a show of exaggerated wonder. There was no denying it though: the view would stupefy lesser minds.
Isabel looked ahead. The Anvil completed a turn and the Earth Expeditionary Forces war fleet showed itself in all its glory. It was the largest purpose-built space force ever assembled by human hands. Isabel had seen it on the way to Rockwall but now, heading out, surrounded by great hunks of metal and with no easy way to slither past, she had to admit the view was awe-inspiring. With the help from her augmented glasses, she counted at least two superdreadnoughts, a dozen battleships, twice as many cruisers, scores of destroyers and an innumerable horde of smaller assault and supply ships vying to take possession of all the space in front of them.
“Let’s not keep the titans waiting. They don’t like it very much.” Isabel threw a switch. The Anvil jumped ahead like it just got extra legs. Its communications array chirped with an incoming signal.
“They’re hailing you,” Nadie pointed to a lamp, flashing and buzzing on the blocky dashboard.
“Thank you, Commander Obvious. Go hide now.”
“Here I go inside the closet,” Nadie climbed out of the chair and approached the door,. She turned back just before stepping through. “Isabel?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t screw this up.”
Her friend walked away. Isabel, left to ponder the meaning of that statement in loneliness, felt her mood go sour. She knew exactly what Nadie was referring to. They knew each other within inches of reading each other’s minds. It still wasn’t too late for the gunrunner to change her tack, jump ship and betray the defeated Colonials. She could be on the side of the victorious Earthers, instead. The lot in her hands would fetch a hefty sum.
For a recap, she had the families of Colonial leaders, a spec ops operative with a long record of battling Earth’s soldiers, a fugitive ex-Space Marine wanted by the Earth Council, and the cherry on the cake: Jacob Pace, the Arbiter of the Colonial Congress and High Command, the man she would love to see slow-roasted over fire on a rotating skewer.
The image of squirming Pace stacked up the temptation to nearly insurmountable heights. The big question was, did Isabel Rocarion value mountains of money more than her friendship with Nadie? If there was a way she could throw the Arbiter to the wolves and keep Nadine Chu safe, she’d take it, but she couldn’t see it.
“What do you think I should do, Leon?”
The chamonkey looked up. He had finished eating from a bowl and now lay curled on the floor, ready for another nap. His eyes flared up for a moment with a bright purple hue. She could feel her own eyes starting to act up behind the mirror glasses. Leon gave her a short squawk, closed his eyes and went to sleep.
“I could say the same thing about you, you lazy lump of hair.” Isabel smiled. She and the chamonkey were worth one another.
She reduced the ship’s velocity to a crawl and finally thumbed the flashing comms switch to open the channel. In her range of vision, EEF ships were close already. Some were moving even closer. For a moment, she thought those big enforcers of Earth’s law were on manoeuvres in response to her one little freighter approaching them. She quickly dismissed the idea. It was plainly ridiculous. What the EEFers were doing was in preparation for the ground assault of Rockwall.
“WARNING. YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO BREAK THROUGH AN EARTH EXPEDITIONARY FORCES QUARANTINE ZONE.”
Isabel cursed at the power of the audio blast and looked for the volume slider. Leon got spooked and landed in her lap, stretching his entire body and poking her like a lord in his bed. The creature bristled and shivered, brushed against her belly. Its fur looked like a brilliant disco ball changing colours in a sweaty dance club. Leon rapidly switched between vivid reds, fiery oranges and mellow yellows, according to his mood swings.
“It’s gonna be fine, love,” she told him, kneading the space between his shoulder blades. She was disappointed that the message was generic. A quarantine zone? What an unflattering euphemism for a siege.
Stroking the chamonkey’s back, Isabel typed a code on her computer keyboard. She used one hand and when she was finished, she hit send.
“…TURN AROUND OR YOU WILL BE SHOT. WARNING. YOU A...” The automated voice surrendered to a series of fast beeps. A real person bothered to check the line about ten seconds later.
“This is Fleet Control. Where did you get this number?” a tired voice asked.
“This is Isabel Rocarion on the Anvil. Tell Captain Santiago on the Higher Power: the roost is coming home to chickens.” She swallowed, expecting laughter as the reply. The codeword Santiago had forced her to use was as silly as could be.
“Understood,” the controller said after a pause of a dozen nerve-wracking seconds. “Shut down your engines. EES Higher Power is coming to get you.”
* 5 *
A significantly larger EEF vessel tractored Isabel’s s
hip inside a cavernous landing bay. Earth Expeditionary Ship Higher Power was a raiding carrier. Ground pounders filled it to its portholes. On behalf of Isabel Rocarion, the Rockwall landing party was postponed. Boredom and battle anxiety grew. The air was full of a distinctive, sweaty whiff. The raid was supposed to go easy. EEF brass promised amnesty to any rank-and-file Colonial who chose to surrender peacefully. The soldiers thought different. They were itching to go kick some butts.
Isabel felt leaving the Anvil and mixing with the volatile army group was a bad idea. She dropped one of her exit ramps and faced the looks of an armed assembly of two or three hundred. Despite the phantom creepy crawlies on her back, she waited patiently for her EEF handler to climb up.
“Isabel Rocarion!” swarthy Captain Santiago spoke with his heavy Spanish accent. He opened with a bear hug and pecked her on both cheeks several times. Isabel endured this invasive treatment only as long as was absolutely essential. The second it was safe to disengage, she stepped away from the ground forces officer.
“I can’t do this sober, Juan. Let’s go and get the hooch.”
She invited Santiago to her quarters at the front of the ship. It was spacious enough but almost entirely utilitarian. She had pulled stuff off the walls and put it in the closet so he wouldn’t start touching her personal things. He brought an escort of three armed guards. She was only slightly happier than a three-year-old with a new toy when she told those tools to wait outside. Their meeting would be private throughout.
“I am impressed! I thought you were crazy going into that pozo apestoso. Stinking cesspit down below. Didn’t expect to see you come back for our famous clean air.” Santiago said what he felt. He was a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy, honest, open, direct to a point which sometimes unsettled Isabel.
She sat him down, put a bottle of 10-year bourbon on the table between them and poured a full glass for him. Having a drink to hold on to should stop Santiago’s tendency for talking with his hands. She hated when people did that. It looked like they were saying one thing but hiding their true meaning under a code of gestures.
“The Colonials are in too much wobble right now to worry about little me.” She plopped one leg on the table, next to Santiago’s glass. The one she had prepared for herself remained empty. She preferred to keep sober while the other party got steadily drunk. It would take time to wear down Santiago, but the wait should make the negotiations easier.
“Not so little, I think. You were working with them for years!” Santiago hollered, but it was a sign of excitement, not an allegation of wrongdoing on her part.
“I’ve worked for you too. I’m looking forward to concluding our social contract.”
“Before we do, let me bestow upon you a great honour!” Santiago jumped to his feet. He rummaged through his pockets for a good while. “Ay! Where did I put this little plonker? Aha! Here we go!”
He took out a shiny piece of metal. On one side it was polished silver, on the other a black-and-white depiction of three stars and a crude starship. Isabel recognised the ornament as an EEF officer badge. Santiago had something similar clasped to his slightly crumpled white-and-yellow uniform.
“Isabella! It is my maximum pleasure to give you this good news! Fleet Admiral Stoyanov, in his long-recognised genius, has decided to graciously extend over you the title rank of Army Captain! Isabella, it is a great honour, one that is given to very few and after many years of trials. You are now officially an Earth Expeditionary Forces officer!”
Santiago strode to her proudly as a peacock with the badge outstretched. He was about to pin it on her, but when she slapped his hand back with all the gentleness of an insulted gorilla, he changed tack and tried to kiss her on the cheeks again.
Isabel’s eyes rolled in slow circles behind the round shades. She didn’t bother getting up or making things easier for Santiago. Leon was in the room with her. The chamonkey purred softly in her lap, sleeping or daydreaming. She didn’t feel like disturbing him. Not for an unwanted promotion, for sure.
She picked up the leg which had been resting on the floor and brought it to give Santiago’s belly a shove with her hard-heeled boot. The Army Captain groaned and walked two steps backwards.
“Captain? The resistance offered me a generalship.”
“Que?” Santiago cocked his head and glared at her as if he’d just noticed a rare and curious kind of a butterfly. “Isabella, you cannot be both our captain and a general for the trouble-rouser-makers! Such titles are mutually exclusive! Did you accept?”
“Regrettably, I refused. Had I the shadow of foresight into your Fleet Admiral’s bold and innovative thinking, I would have said yes if only to have a viable excuse for turning down your unwanted advances. I wouldn’t be found in an army dead. And why would I accept a mere captaincy instead of the general’s star? You can tell your grand and dandy Fleet Admiral Stoyanov that Isabel Rocarion says thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather stay independent and unaffiliated.”
Santiago went through a variety of faces while he listened. There was the squinty eye of suspicion, the jutting jaw of defiance, the snouty mouth of rebuff, all cleaned up by a bright and friendly look. Santiago scratched himself under one of his ears, packed up the badge and picked up the glass of bourbon.
“No matter. You will change your mind, I am confident it will happen. To be an EEF captain, just like myself, the lure is... what is the word where you can’t find a way out?”
“Inescapable.”
“Exactamente, chiquita!” Santiago swirled the liquid in the glass and drowned it all with one quick swig. Straight after doing that, he picked up the whole bottle and raised it to the rays of a light source. “Inescapable as the sunshine in this flask! Drink with me, Isabella.”
He unstopped the bottle and poured the bourbon in her glass. Then he toasted her. “To your illustrious future as one of us, Isabella. Life in the army is the sweetest. I had experienced that first hand when I left my previous life in my beautiful but tiny homeland of Bolivia! Space is sooooo much bigger than my old pueblito! Like a big... big... something.”
The Captain gulped straight from the bottle’s neck. Isabel cradled the glass in her hand and sipped slowly. She had some difficulty judging how fast he would get drunk. Santiago started well by drinking so much in one go but he was excitable by default, so it was hard to differentiate his behaviours before and after inebriation.
“We are now on even footing. I bet the life of a smuggler was exciting, eh?”
Isabel slowly replaced the glass where it used to sit before the oaf forced her to drink. It was still half full. Leon was stirring on her thighs, sensing the upswell of irritation she was experiencing. “I’m no smuggler. I’m a gunrunner.”
Santiago didn’t register what she was saying. So she added something else in a tone like a worker who’d just been informed in one go that she’s been made the employee of the month and that it meant she was expected to work seven extra night shifts in a row without pay: “I am flattered beyond words, Juan. Really, this unilateral decision to make me the poster girl of Earthen oppression is exactly what I need right now.”
“This is not oppression! This is prevention!” Santiago sat back heavily in the chair. “But let us talk about more useful things, Isabella. You are a smuggler-“
“Gunrunner,” she gritted her teeth. Really, the determination was turning into something tedious.
“You must be taking something out of Rockwall. Tell me what it is, Isabella. I ask you very nicely like a young pretendiente looking for your favour and admiración.”
“Nothing,” she bit back. His questioning didn’t take her by surprise. She was in a line of work where everyone always expected her to be running some sort of sideshow off the books. And usually, she was. The weight of money bricks inside her coat pockets served her as a reminder that it paid off to look after herself at all times.
“Isabella, I am not very happy with that answer. You say nothing. I say definitely something. You tell me. I
am curious.”
“Nope. I got nothing for you, my charming Spaniard.”
Santiago looked at her, and the left corner of his lips twitched. “I’m not Spaniard. I am a proud son of Bolivia!”
“And I’m a gunrunner.”
They said nothing else for a while. Isabel’s glasses withstood a hard stare from Santiago’s dark eyes. Resisting the glare came easy. Eventually, the Army Captain laughed like a man who heard a good joke at work.
“OK, OK. Don’t tell me then.” Santiago raised the bottle, thought of pouring her more of its contents but saw that she had not finished her drink yet. He sighed, clicked his tongue several times and then pulled another chug straight from the neck like an unrefined tonto before asking: “Did you, by any chance, see John Amicon on your basement trip?”
The conversation was going somewhere at last. Ask your questions, Juan, she thought, and then let me go. “I saw him.”
“Good. Good.” Juan Santiago rocked in his seat as though he’d heard a beat that made him ready to dance. “How was he? Sick? Healthy?”
“As healthy as you can be when you’re hiding 30 clicks below ground while a monstrously big fleet of your enemy approaches and all you’ve got left is a couple of pea shooters. What does it matter how he’s feeling? He is down there, beaten.”
Santiago grinned. “Good. Bueno. Isabella, tell me about the rest of his compañía. Are they all in there too?”
Isabel chewed her lower lip in thought. This was the moment she had to make her decision again. She could tell the truth about Pace and the resistance, pocket some extra cosmos and go her way into cushy retirement on the medical world of Procyon. She had been planning her retreat for ages, ever since she found out the extent of her... condition. She peeked down at Leon, sedate in her lap, apparently sleeping.
She looked back at Santiago while considering the other option: she could honour her word. When you’re dealing with something as volatile as the gun business, lies and double-crossing are a given, but Isabel paid careful attention to making sure her word was her bond. Striking good deals with the client depended on a reputation of trustworthiness. The resistance was collapsing, but the rule still applied.
Her Last Run Page 7
