Peacemaker: The Corona Rebellion 2564 AD

by Gordon Savage

  As they walked down the corridor, Colt asked, “Are you a former SEAL, Mr. Wallace?”

  Wallace stopped and looked at him. “How did you know?”

  “Mostly a lucky guess. Your movements suggested someone thoroughly trained in unarmed combat, and you’re in a good position to be an unobtrusive bodyguard.”

  Wallace resumed walking.

  Colt continued, “I bring it up because your training may be needed. I’m concerned that Governor General Remarque is minimizing this situation. I don’t think what we have here is a friendly game of bridge. I don’t suppose I need to remind you to keep on your toes.”

  “Not at all. I’m concerned too, but as long as the Invincible is in orbit, I believe the rebels will mind their manners.” Wallace ran his fingers over the keyboard of his desk console.

  “I hope you’re right,” Colt responded.

  Wallace picked up several sheets of paper from the printer. “Just in case, this is a printed list of the people we’ll invite: names, head shots, coordinates, street addresses, and communicator numbers. I also transmitted a copy to the Invincible. Good luck, Commander.”

  Colt accepted the papers. “Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

  ###

  Aurora had long since set and the inner moon, Selene, hung almost directly overhead just out of the planetary shadow when Colt strode out of the governor general’s residence and walked down the stairs to Captain Wessler’s personal flyer. He opened the right front door and climbed in. As he turned to the driver, he realized the man was unconscious.

  A voice from the back seat said, “Well, Gus. How did it go?” For a split second Colt froze — his heart in his throat. Then the voice registered. He jerked his head around so he could see the man in the back seat.

  “Bloody Hell! Fitz, you just about scared the life out of me.”

  Charles Fitzhugh chuckled. “Sorry about your driver, he’ll be around in a few minutes. I just didn’t want him to see me. I think you’re right that the rebels don’t believe this is a bridge game.”

  “You’ve got the big man bugged? I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise. Can you tell me anything or is this a one-way exchange.”

  “Just to be on the alert. I do need your help though. Jana Stewart has been taken hostage, and I’m temporarily isolated from my secure link to headquarters. I need you to pass this on to Naval Intelligence.” Fitzhugh handed Colt a nanodrive. “Make sure only you and Gretchen see what’s on there. Otherwise, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Fitzhugh opened the left side door. “Well, I can’t stick around to socialize. Maybe we can talk later. I’ll look you up.” And he was gone.

  ###

  “Did you notice anything odd about Fitzhugh’s report on the nanodrive, Gus?” Wessler asked.

  “More like what wasn’t odd about it,” Colt replied.

  He and Captain Wessler sat in the briefing room, examining the report Fitzhugh had given him. He looked thoughtful, “Dissidents have their hands on a Royal, and they aren’t even making it public? That doesn’t make sense. If they don’t have her as a hostage, why not? There wasn’t much information in the report.”

  Wessler nodded. “I think the answer to your question is that she knows something they don’t want her to tell. If they made any demands based on having her, even to make it look like a simple kidnapping, they risk someone finding her.”

  “I can buy that, but it also suggests that something is afoot that has to happen fairly soon. They can’t hold her for long, even incommunicado, without her family back on Earth demanding she be found.” Colt lapsed into silence, his brow wrinkled.

  Wessler looked at him expectantly. “I know that look. You’ve thought of something.”

  “There’s something about this that’s familiar. I’m trying to remember what it is.”

  “You mean about the kidnapping?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t Jana kidnapped about seven years ago?”

  Wessler hesitated. “I vaguely remember that. It didn’t amount to much. They found her right away, unharmed.”

  “Exactly, and they found her because of the way she left clues.”

  “Like her ring?”

  “Not just her ring. When I was her liaison officer she talked to me about it. She left a lot of material, including a recording of the comm call she was following up on, in the safe at the hotel. There was nothing in this report about checking the safe.”

  “I don’t suppose there was something encoded in the report?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, but I doubt it has anything to do with checking the safe.”

  “So we need to contact Fitzhugh. Do you have a way to contact him?”

  Colt shook his head. “Chuck always seems to find me. I don’t know how to contact him.”

  “Well, since Adrian wants us to provide transportation to bring the delegates together for this peace conference, we could use a liaison officer to go along. I’d like you to stand in and see if Fitzhugh contacts you.”

  “Sounds good to me, Captain.”

  “You might as well take charge of setting up the transport. I’ll leave the details to you, but keep me informed.”

  Chapter 8

  “Good afternoon, Commander Colt. I observe that your firearm plaque is no longer in your quarters.” The AI sounded concerned. “Did you remove it while I was down for maintenance?”

  “What the hell?” Colt stared at the blank spot on the wall where his Peacemaker plaque had been. “What happened to my forty-five?”

  “I beg your pardon, Sir, your what?”

  “My forty-five, the pistol on a plaque I had hung on the wall.”

  “That is what I was reporting, Sir. I was shut down for maintenance from 13:01 until 13:12. It was here before then, and it was no longer here afterwards.”

  “You mean you didn’t see who took it?”

  “Sorry, Sir. No. For some reason the room sensors were off at the same time I was down.”

  “Great,” Colt growled. “ Call the Provost Marshal for me.”

  “Provost Marshal.” On the screen the petty officer who answered the intercom looked ready to yawn. His nonchalant attitude reminded Colt that the worst the shore patrol had to deal with on ships of the Republic in flight was usually a fight that got out of hand.

  Colt clamped down a disciplined calm. “I’m Commander Colt, and I need to report a missing firearm.”

  The petty officer jumped to alert, “Yes, sir.” He touched a pad on his desktop. “All right, sir, I’m recording. Could you start with your name, rank, and service number?”

  Colt managed to remain composed as he provided what seemed like far too much trivial information. Finally the petty officer asked, “Now sir, could you describe the firearm?”

  “It’s a Colt model 1873 single action .45 caliber revolver, known as a Peacemaker.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, a what?”

  “A .45 caliber handgun that shoots bullets. It can be just as deadly as a blaster if used properly. However, I don’t believe anyone else aboard has ammunition for it.”

  The petty officer visibly relaxed. “I see, sir. Why would anyone steal it if it can’t be used?”

  “It’s a collector’s item. It’s one of the early ones, and very few of them survived The Event.”

  “I see, sir. Is there anything else I should know about it?”

  “The serial number on it is 357849.”

  “Very well, sir. I’ll send an investigator to your cabin immediately. She’ll have the paper work with her, ready for you to sign.”

  ###

  As soon as he broke the connection with the provost marshal, Colt forced himself back to work. He called up the details of the pickup. There were twenty-four delegations of two or three people each. Seven would provide their own transportation. That left three separate pickup runs for a C7 class shuttle with VIP seating. Colt contacted flight ops and described the mission. A few minutes later, Tony Orsini was on his screen. “Deck
er figured it was my turn to take one of the milk runs,” he said.

  Colt explained the logistics to Orsini and left him in charge of picking the rest of the crew, getting the seating installed, and loading any necessary supplies.

  One of the civilian contractors on the Invincible was retired Master Chief Petty Officer, Harry Chapman. Chapman had a way with field drive generators that was legendary throughout the navy. Colt decided to take him along as insurance. He dialed Chapman up.

  “This should be a routine passenger pickup, Harry, except these are all delegates to the peace conference.”

  “All VIPs, you mean.”

  “Yes, but you’ll be along to make sure the drives are working, not playing nursemaid to VIPs. I want to get this over without a hitch, and I can’t think of anyone better qualified to make that happen.”

  “Flattery always makes me suspicious,” Chapman said. “So why are you on this run?”

  “Courier duty.”

  “Pretty high-ranking courier, Commander.”

  “I know, but the details are sensitive, and I happen to be the best qualified to take care of them.”

  “Okay. Sign me up. I could use some shore leave.”

  ###

  The crew Orsini rounded up, including an honor guard of marines, looked to be a good one. Colt made only one change. He released the co-pilot since he planned to be in the right seat. Orsini conducted the briefing while Colt sat in the back of the briefing room.

  At zero nine hundred hours Orsini backed the shuttle, Clermont, out of the hangar bay and into space. Wallace had insisted on a final briefing for the crew, so Orsini took the Clermont directly to First Landing spaceport.

  They landed mid-afternoon local time. The Home Guard posted a security squad to look after the shuttle, and the liaison officer escorted the entire crew to the Home Guard hangar for the briefing. Wallace gave Colt a dossier that contained backgrounds on every delegate, including personality traits and conflicts. After the briefing Wallace introduced the Home Guard quartermaster who assigned everyone a room in the barracks next door and gave them chits for the mess hall in the barracks building. Colt released the crew with a reminder to keep on their toes and be ready for lift-off for the first run at zero four hundred hours local the next day.

  ###

  Colt changed into his civvies, called for a cab, and headed downtown. He planned to spend the rest of the afternoon window shopping, making sure he was noticed in case Fitzhugh or someone working for him was watching. He was approaching a store entrance when he saw a familiar face coming from the opposite direction. She was tall and physically fit with short brown hair and green eyes. What drew Colt to look at her was that she wore no makeup and she walked with a distinct military gait. He couldn’t place her, but something nibbled at him telling him she was important. He pulled out his communicator and began talking to it as if he were answering a private call. As he turned to look in the window of the shop, he surreptitiously ran a quick video shot of her.

  The shop sold communicators and he pretended to study the models in the display window. The window also clearly reflected what was behind him as she walked by. A small tattoo on her neck caught his attention: marine special ops. Colt knew she wasn’t from the Invincible because he had familiarized himself with the special ops squad.

  An image flashed in his mind of former marine sergeant Nancy Hess. She was one of the six rebels who had escaped earlier from the spaceport. She had been given an other-than-honorable discharge for brutalizing a prisoner to get information that allowed her squad to rescue over a dozen civilians who were being held hostage. Colt wondered briefly why she hadn’t fought the charge. She was known to have a quick temper and was believed to be working for New Castle Security, a somewhat unorthodox mercenary organization — unorthodox meaning no evidence was available that was acceptable in court.

  Colt used his communicator to call Wallace. “I’ve just run into one of the six rebels who got away at the spaceport. I’m sending her picture now so you can confirm it. Her name is Nancy Hess.”

  Wallace responded, “I’m getting the video now. That’s definitely her.”

  “Good. Send a squad of Home Guards to pick her up. I’ll keep her in sight. Have the squad leader contact me right away. I’m headed south on Centennial.”

  Hess turned at the next corner and walked east. Mid-block she pulled out her communicator and spoke into it briefly. Putting the communicator away, she began walking faster. Colt continued to follow her, but he was careful to stay back as far as he could to keep her from noticing him. Colt’s communicator announced an incoming call from the Home Guard. They were fifteen minutes from his current location.

  Hess continued east, passing businesses of various sizes that lined the street. Then she turned south again. Colt became more and more uncomfortable as the number of people on the street decreased, making him feel exposed. A few blocks farther on Hess met a group of people on the corner and stopped to talk with them. Although it seemed innocent, Colt took pictures of the group and forwarded them to the Home Guard squad leader. He pretended to be examining a new model flyer in a dealership lot while he waited for Hess to move on. When she continued down the street, the group began walking his way.

  He continued to look at the flyer until they had passed. Just as a harried looking salesman hurried up, Colt turned and headed south again. She was gone. He swore to himself as he started trotting toward the corner. Caution slowed him down before he reached it. Looking to the left and right he saw nothing but an empty street. Then he realized someone was approaching him from behind.

  The group who had passed by him at the dealership was coming back. “Are you looking for someone, mister?” The tall man in front said. It had an edge to it.

  Colt saw no point in lying. “Yeah, I’m looking for Sergeant Hess.”

  “Do you know her?” the man asked, a bit surprised.

  “Only by reputation; one of the toughest soldiers on the market.”

  “Do you have business with her?” By then the group had surrounded him and Colt noticed several bulges that were clearly sidearms.

  Colt decided that business was as good a cover as any. “That depends. I wouldn’t want to be bidding against her current employer.”

  “Perhaps you should talk to her,” a woman said, exposing a blaster.

  “If she’s willing to see me,” Colt responded.

  “Oh, she’ll see you,” the tall man said. “Put your hands on your head. I need to frisk you.”

  They took his communicator and wallet. The tall man pulled out Colt’s ID. “Commander Colt, Royal Navy. Now, why would you want to talk to Sergeant Hess? You know you’re on opposite sides, don’t you?”

  “She’s for hire, isn’t she?”

  “When this gig is over.”

  The woman showed him Colt’s communicator. “His last call was to the Home Guard with a picture of all of us talking.”

  The man tossed Colt’s communicator onto the sidewalk. “You didn’t expect to get away with this, did you?”

  “I thought I was doing such a good job,” Colt answered.

  The rebel looked at him. “Oh, you were.”

  “Then how did you notice me?”

  “Never mind,” the rebel responded. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be here when the Home Guard shows up.” He caught Colt by the arm and pushed him ahead adding, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  ###

  The commercial buildings ended abruptly and were replaced by older well-kept homes, most with mutated Earth trees surrounding them. A few blocks later the group led Colt up the driveway of a brick house enclosed by a tall, almost impenetrable hedge. They took him behind the house to an outside entrance that led directly into the basement. Downstairs, the tall man turned to one of the others, “Go sit on the porch and keep an eye out for the Home Guard.” Then he turned to Colt, “Now what are we going to do with you?”

  “For starters, you’re going to let me talk to Sergeant
Hess.”

  “Are they?” A woman’s voice from the top of the stairs asked.

  Colt looked up to see Hess descending the stairs with a faint smile on her face. “You do realize what kind of trouble you’re in, don’t you, Commander?”

  “Trouble?” Colt returned the smile. “I’m here with a business proposition.”

  “With Home Guard as backup? I don’t think so.” She said.

  “Tall and skinny here says you may be available after this gig. So, I’m in no hurry.” Colt replied.

  “All right, let’s cut the crap.” Her smile gave way to a frown. “How did you recognize me?”

  “You left DNA in your abandoned armor. I must admit you have a fascinating military record. One blemish got you canned. Why didn’t you fight it?”

  “I did what I did. I disobeyed orders. I figured the hostages were more important than the creeps who were holding them.”

  “I can’t officially condone what you did, but unofficially I can admire you for the results. But, that’s not why I’m here.”

  “I assume you’re really here about yesterday.”

  “True. But I do have a question. Do you know anything about why someone took a shot at me back on Alsace?”

  “How is that relevant?” Hess asked.

  “If you knew anything about it you’d know why it’s relevant, which I suppose means it isn’t relevant.”

  Hess shook her head. “Enough nonsense. What do you want?”

  “You should be able to figure that out. By now you know that all the rebels we picked up yesterday have had their hands slapped and been sent home. You and your cohorts were a little more destructive, so I’m not sure how you’ll be handled, but I can promise you we’ll be fair.”

  “You seem to think you’re in charge here,” she said. “Look who are holding the weapons.”

  “It does give you a false sense of power, doesn’t it? But before I take you in, I have one more question.”

  “Before you take me in …?” she sputtered.

  “Yes.” Colt continued as if unperturbed. “Why was it necessary to destroy all the subspace communicators? From what I understand, someone even broke into the governor general’s yacht and wrecked his.”