Chimera Company Season 2 - Deep Cover

by Tim C. Taylor

  “I want a dirty bomb,” she said. “Radiation. Fallout. Fear!”

  She regarded the spy, or whatever the Zhoogene really was. Would he shoot to his feet and condemn her for even conceiving such an evil act?

  Ren Kay answered with a lazy grin. “Not a problem. I can do that.”

  “The willfully cancerous dissenters are edging closer to the capital, but they draw their strongest support from Zones 81 through 84, in the plains to the east of the Ashclombe Mountains.”

  “Won’t it look odd to pin the blame on the rebels if they nuke their own supporters?”

  “Of course it would,” she snapped. “It is to the east of those zones, on the shores of the Amber Sea, where they are pushing hardest to spread their lies and extend their control. They hope to make that region their heartlands of the future. I trust my assistant, Blayde Asher, with the details of our strategy. She will contact you within two days with the coordinates of one of the towns or small cities that are resisting the lure of the rebels. Petty, brutal, and with evil seething through every cell of their bodies, the so-called and self-appointed Revolutionary Forces of Reconciliation will explode a bomb to terrorize the town into submission.”

  Ren Kay considered the proposal seriously. “Wouldn’t it be better to blame the bomb on the Panhandlers? You want to unite the public behind you, right? Wouldn’t that be easier if you blame off-worlders?”

  “You’re right, damn you. Nuke that city into radioactive glass and make it look like a Panhandler atrocity. Blame them both if you can.”

  “Whoah, there. Back off, Revered Leader! It’s gonna look unconvincing if you glass an entire city. Even a small one. The Panhandlers want to deliver a message, and I agree that their ideology allows them to justify any action whatsoever so long as it supports their objectives. But you’re suggesting a level of unnecessary cruelty the people might not buy into. No, we need a small yield. No more than a hundred kilotons. Just enough for EB-Link to trend with images of radioactive clouds that will terrify people over thousands of square miles, not to mention poison the sea.”

  Doubts crept in again. Was she doing the right thing?

  Ren Kay seemed to register her misgivings. “Remember the Muryani. If we’re not strong enough to stand up to them, they will annex Eiylah-Bremah and ship its people across their empire to be slaves until the end of time. Are you strong enough to do this, Revered Leader In’Nalla? Or do we need to find somebody else?”

  “Such an action should never come easily, Ren Kay. Only a megalomaniac could order such a thing without doubts, and such an individual is not fit to lead. I am the lawfully elected leader of this world, and that gives me the moral authority. I worry about your casual attitude.”

  He looked serious for a moment. “It is good that you think carefully before such a course of action, In’Nalla. I shall await a communication from this Blayde Asher. I will not contact you again until after the action has concluded. It is best you do not know the details in advance.”

  ——

  After she’d dismissed him, In’Nalla spent several valuable minutes staring at the hatch Ren Kay had left through, trying to corral her doubts. She subdued her moral struggles, but she couldn’t tame her distrust of this man and the Blue Chamber who controlled him.

  In the ten years since she’d sworn off alcohol, she’d never needed a drink more than now. Her gut told her to trust these dangerous allies just long enough to win her final victory, but it also told her to prepare contingencies. That was okay, though. Asher was very good at that kind of thing.

  Soon… soon she could relax. That, or she’d be dead.

  “When it’s all over,” she said to the empty space. “When the people rise up and reject the WCDs forever, then… then I’ll drink a whole damned case of Scalian whiskey.”

  It was a promise to herself she intended to keep. In’Nalla stood, straight backed, and walked out the room.

  She was Revered Leader In’Nalla.

  And she had a job to do.

  VETCH ARUNSEN

  Halfway through the morning’s confession practice, Lantosh walked into the claustrophobic room and leaned over Vetch’s table. “Follow me,” she whispered into his ear.

  He glanced up at the re-educator technician and the REED guard who completely ignored Lantosh’s presence.

  In these confession sessions, you read your prepared speech and didn’t let another word slip past your lips. Beatings for any exceptions would be savage.

  Obedience to the rigid regime had become so ingrained in the short time they’d been here, that Vetch found the idea of walking out that door was inconceivable. It just wasn’t… what he was supposed to do.

  “That’s an order,” snapped Lantosh.

  Yeah, she sounded like an officer all right.

  After another nervous glance at the re-educators, who were still pretending they couldn’t hear, he glared up at Lantosh. “I don’t work for you.”

  “Yes, you do. The moment you told me that phrase you’d overheard, you were mine.”

  Was he?

  He decided he was. He’d repeated Sybutu’s words on the cusp of the moment, but he didn’t regret it. He’d gotten Lily and Darant incarcerated here, and he would damned well get them out. But for that, he needed allies.

  He complied, following her out of the confession complex and across the exercise grounds to a row of storage sheds that the guards sometimes used for beatings.

  They never hit you in your face or your hands, but the REEDs were determined that you would always be hurting and could never feel safe from a beating.

  He’d been beaten in public. Sometimes indoors in tiny cupboards. He’d been dragged from his sleep one night and taken to one of these storage sheds where they’d strung him up by his beard. He’d had to stand on tiptoe for hours on end to avoid ripping his beard out of his chin.

  Damned REEDs thought that was funny.

  They were just the random beatings. Actual punishments were far harsher.

  And still no one had asked Vetch who he really was. Nor had they shown any signs of connecting him to the events in Kaylingen, or those at Krunacao.

  He followed Lantosh into a shed that was cool and musty. Under a single, flickering strip light, random stacks of boxes topped with discarded machinery dominated the gloomy edges of the shed. At its center, two REEDs faced each other across the room.

  Knowing A-10, the darkness – and the sense that this place had been abandoned and then forgotten – had all been carefully constructed. This was the kind of place where prisoners might disappear.

  Uh, oh! What have you led me into, Lantosh?

  The former Legion colonel walked into the space between the two REEDS and faced the one standing with their back to the north wall. Vetch joined her. The REED ordered them to stand at attention and keep their mouth shut if they didn’t want a shock stick rammed down their throats.

  Somewhere behind that black gas mask helmet and the shiny hazmat uniform with the blood red cross was a human woman, or what had once been, judging by her voice. Vetch found it hard to consider the person inside to be human.

  He didn’t recognize her voice, and that was unusual. He suspected that each prisoner was assigned a limited number of re-educators so the bastards could learn the best ways to torture and manipulate each individual.

  The REED standing behind them bothered Vetch the most. The backs of his legs tingled, expecting a stick to thwack against his tendons without warning.

  But the strike didn’t come. Instead, the REED to Vetch’s rear walked out the door without a word, leaving Vetch to stand with Lantosh and the REED woman in gloomy silence.

  Your psychodrama games won’t work with me.

  Vetch withdrew inside. He thought of the friends he’d lost since riding out of Fort Iceni saddled up to an exuberant Saruswine: Deep Tone, Rynter, Sward, and that poor kid, Meatbolt. As for Green Fish, if she was still alive, he would certainly never see her again. When he went through that list, he drew
strength from the knowledge that his friends had never given up. Never stopped believing in him. Whatever Lantosh and the REEDs were about to throw his way, he would stay strong for the sake of his fallen friends, because he would never let them down.

  The door opened.

  Vetch turned and looked to see who had joined them.

  “Good to see you,” he said to Lily and Darant. The latter had acquired a swelling in the left eye.

  “I told you to keep quiet,” said the REED who’d stayed with them.

  “Fuck you,” Vetch told her. All the rage boiled over. He couldn’t hold it in anymore.

  Vetch bunched his fists, knowing he was about to do something really stupid, and he no longer cared.

  “I admire your spirit, Mr. Arunsen,” said the REED. “Just as well. I expect my marines to possess a certain get up and go.”

  “Your marines?” said all the prisoners in unison, Lantosh the most stridently.

  The REED removed her helmet and revealed the human inside.

  It was Captain Fitzwilliam.

  “Nice voice changer,” said Lily. “Had me fooled.”

  Fitz grinned. “One picks up a trick or two in my line of work.”

  “Fitzwilliam…” Lantosh whispered, astonished almost beyond words.

  “I assumed you knew who this was,” Vetch told her.

  “Not that it would be him. Well, well, well. My dear old friend. I never expected to see your face again.”

  Fitz’s expression soured. “Less of the old friend, Lantosh. The last person to call me that was Obinquin Nuysp. He was murdered hours later. Does the name Department 9 mean anything to you?”

  “It does, unfortunately.”

  “Well they’re here. They murdered Nuysp, tried to kill me. And as for Cisco…” Fitz swallowed hard. “Cisco was always my friend. Now he’s frozen radioactive dust on Rho-Torkis. Galaxy’s gone to the dogs, Lantosh. I tell you, I don’t like it. As for you… don’t try to tell me I was under deep cover all this time. I’m not coming in from the void. I’m not your dear old friend. And I do not work for the Firm.”

  “Of course, I don’t expect you to be returning to the fold, Fitzwilliam – Hell, it feels so strange to call you that name to your face. Operation Redeal is underway. The name is not an accident, Fitzwilliam. The old petty allegiances are gone now. Redeal changes everything. Everything.”

  “I agree,” said man in the REED’s uniform standing behind them. It was Bronze. “Everything’s changing. But there is one thing we need to concentrate on changing first. How to get you out of here.”

  “Right on,” said Vetch. “But first, Enthree… Is she okay?”

  “She’s desperately worried about you,” Fitz replied. “I’m seeing her tomorrow. Do any of you have words of encouragement I can pass on to let her know your spirits are high?”

  “Yeah,” said Darant. “Tell her, when this is over, I’ll teach her to dance. Human style.”

  “You?” Fitz laughed. “You’re a dancer.”

  “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

  “Not at all. Just confirming the capabilities of my new personnel. Now, to business. Lily I have a job for you. I have a particularly odious skragg bucket I want you to beat the shit out of. Are you up to the task?”

  Lily sighed luxuriously like a waking cat…

  VOL ZAVAGE

  “You haven’t lost her, you know?”

  Zavage gripped the steering wheel tightly but made no reply.

  Fitz didn’t get the hint. Zavage was beginning to think the smuggler captain was scared of silence. “I may not possess your marvelous kesah-kihisia,” said Fitz from the passenger seat, “but I can read people. The connection between you and Green Fish is not something easily broken.”

  Zavage ground his jaw.

  Their six-wheeled truck was still five klicks out from Kaylingen’s official capital-zone boundary, but already they had passed three checkpoints of hard-faced citizen armed action groups, a spontaneous militia of civilians organized through EB-Link messaging pads. They were the result of the panic spreading across the planet in the wake of the atrocities at the village of Krunacao.

  Most on EB-Link agreed they would not stand by and allow their hard-won progress toward a virtuous society to be derailed, but not everyone agreed who to blame.

  An increasing number of human civilians seemed to think the mysterious mechs were evidence of a Muryani invasion. As a Kurlei, Zavage had been born into a minority race dwindling possibly toward extinction in this region of the galaxy. He’d had no choice but to live and work among humans, but the race still managed to amaze him. Only humans could see mechs in the form of giant humanoids and convince themselves that they were driven by six-limbed Muryani. Humans constructed such elaborate stories sometimes.

  Captain Fitz was a case in point. No doubt in the human’s mind, he was trying to cheer up his Kurlei companion by persuading him that Green Fish was waiting just beyond the next adventure, when really it was all about Izza. If Fitz could convince himself that Green Fish wasn’t lost, then maybe his wife wasn’t either.

  A ferocious snore from the cargo bed cut through the modest road noise. Enthree was in the back, asleep in a transportation box designed for dangerous animals. If they’d known how many checkpoints had sprung up since the day before, Zavage would never have agreed to bring Enthree in via this route.

  “The next few days could be rather dangerous,” said Fitz.

  “Just say what you need to say and then keep your mind on mission,” Zavage replied.

  “But I am. A person needs hope when the situation seems hopeless. And I tell you, I’m quite certain Green Fish will come back for you. You can spread your fish lumps over me if you like. Then you’d know I mean what I say.”

  That was it. The human had gone too far.

  Zavage parked up. He gave Fitz a hard, contemplative look, despite the man’s head being wrapped in a hood that revealed only his dark shades and a slit for his mouth. “Your marriage looks pretty shattered from where I’m standing. I don’t know whether to punch you or console you, but no amount of self-delusion will bring them back. We are on our own now, Fitzwilliam.”

  The human leaned over the center console that divided them and tapped his shades to render them transparent. His eyes glowed as he looked into Zavage’s soul.

  Their minds linked.

  For the first time, Zavage felt the true shape of Fitz’s mind. It was human… yes… but it was also something else. He radiated confidence that he would be reunited with his Izza, and it was not the brittleness of self-delusion Zavage was expecting, a crust of wishful thinking that reality would soon sink through. Instead, Zavage felt robust confidence laid over deep foundations of experience and trust.

  Fitz winked a violet eye and then the moment was gone, though it left Zavage stunned.

  And hopeful.

  A light flicked across the road a hundred yards ahead.

  It was a checkpoint that Zavage had been too distracted to notice. Two columns had been sunk into the edge of the road. Lasers fired from one to the other, reflecting off each other’s polished surfaces to form a barrier grid of coherent light. They didn’t look that powerful, but the truck was an unarmored civilian model. Driving through that laser gate would be a desperate gamble the truck – and possibly its inhabitants – would not survive.

  A half dozen humanoid citizens wearing armbands and black hats manned the checkpoint. Four of them had rifles, and the two who didn’t walked over to the truck.

  “Who are you?” demanded one of them. He wore a blue armband and gray flat cap, and he acted like a leader. The armbands of the others, Zavage noted, were black. “What is your purpose?”

  “We’ve been contracted by the Kaylingen Municipal Menagerie,” Zavage explained. “We’re transporting an adult Artraxa ensata, a spearheaded atraxian, caught in the jungles of Zone-75.”

  They looked more disgusted by Zavage than worried by a dangerous animal.

 
“Your head is uncovered,” one told Zavage, himself wearing a half-brimmed green felt hat. “That’s disgusting, especially at a time like this when decent folk need to show solidarity. Cover up.”

  “I shall not,” Zavage retorted. “My kesah-kihisia that disgust you so much are a part of my natural sensory organs. It would be both unnatural and unhealthy for me to cover them. I’m offended by your suggestion.”

  “Don’t say another word,” the man in the blue armband warned his fellow. He released a heavy sigh. “Jenkins, place yourself under arrest and surrender yourself to the nearest police registration kiosk.”

  This Jenkins went wide eyed with rage and glared at his comrade. “Are you shitting me, DeRenzi?”

  “Your words sounded to me like a potential speech crime,” DeRenzi answered resolutely. “During this crisis we must be super vigilant. We must demonstrate faith in the system.”

  Jenkins looked sheer hatred at Zavage before storming away, presumably to turn himself in to the authorities.

  DeRenzi leaned through the open window of the cab and glowered at Zavage. “I will destroy you. This crisis has left Jenkins overwrought. He would never normally commit speech crimes. I blame you.”

  “If you hate my Kurlei friend so much,” said Fitz, “then why did you ask poor Mr. Jenkins to turn himself in?”

  DeRenzi slid the full fury of his gaze across to hold Fitz in its glare. “I did it because the incident was seen, recorded, and uploaded, on EB-Link. If I hadn’t spoken up, I would have been guilty of speech crime myself, and right now, I’m needed here at the barricades and checkpoints.”

  Fitz shook his head, confused. “But isn’t that… and I mean no disrespect to your local customs… completely batshit crazy?”

  Although DeRenzi’s face expression cooled into an impassive stony face, Zavage sensed him radiate surprise. Suspicion quickly followed, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out why. Off-worlders were assumed to be behind the fearsome Krunacao mechs.

  “We’re off-world contractors,” Zavage explained. “Dangerous wild animals like our spearheaded atraxian in the back don’t catch themselves, you know?”