McKillip frowned. “The way things have been going for Dixon lately is there any real chance that will work?”
Quan allowed himself a brief smile. “We’ll put mercs in charge of the operation and have them report to him as if he were running the show. That way there won’t be any screw ups.”
“So how do we get the message to Colt?”
“If my source is right, Colt is in contact with a spook named Fitzhugh, and Fitzhugh has his own sources that are on the lookout for Colt’s crew. All we have to do is pass an unprotected order to Dixon to move the crew to an accessible location.”
“Should we bring Dixon in for a debriefing so he’s out of the way when it happens?”
“Normally I’d say that was a good idea. Unfortunately, Dixon may have an ego, but he’s not stupid. If we take him out of circulation while this is going on, he’ll know we aren’t being straight with him.”
McKillip smiled faintly. “So you think it would be better to play him with false information?”
Quan caught the irony. “As I said, he’s an egotist, and it’s easy to play an egotist as long as you keep him thinking he’s in charge.”
“I suspect you’re right. Does that apply to me too?”
Quan blanched enough that McKillip could see it. He swallowed and said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean how much am I in control and how much am I being played?”
“Nobody’s playing you.”
“Oh, come off it. You’ve been playing me the whole time. I went along because you were leading me where I wanted to go. Now I’m beginning to wonder. The way events have been going sour lately are we beating a dead horse? We’ll need to discuss this later. For now see if you can get August or Colt or whatever his name is out of our hair.”
Quan started to argue and then thought better of it. “Okay, I’ll get a team together and assign them to Dixon on paper. Then I’ll send Dixon a secure order about the team and what they’re doing.”
“Make sure you come up with a solid reason for him to not get directly involved.”
Quan nodded. “I’ll get back with you as soon as I get everything out.” He headed for the door.
Quan stopped briefly when McKillip said, “This conversation isn’t over.”
He held off using his communicator until he stepped into the men’s room. “Okay, I backed your plan in, and she thinks I’m just now ordering it instead of it already being underway. But we’ve got problems, she suspects that I’ve been playing her. I hope you didn’t put Dixon in actual charge of this operation.”
Chapter 30
The stink bug committee continued to monitor the militia transmissions. By Saturday, it was clear that dissension was spreading in the ranks and that their lost weapons weren’t being resupplied. The few weapons that were left were being used to hold a few key communities.
Colt spent the day doing farm chores. After dinner he and Lindsay went out to the barn to keep their discussion away from Brady.
“I’m not comfortable about you going after your crew by yourself,” Lindsay said. “If Dennis knows where your crewmembers are, why doesn’t he rescue them?”
“He doesn’t have the manpower. Almost everyone who works for him is some kind of informant, not a real operative, and they aren’t trained for a rescue operation.”
“Are you?”
“Well enough.”
“What about Dennis?”
“He has too many responsibilities to risk being compromised in a rescue attempt.”
She wasn’t placated. “What about us? Brady and I have gotten used to having you around. What if you are caught or killed? And don’t you have some responsibility to the people of the province?”
“That’s not fair. As long as I’m in the navy, duty comes first. The military can’t work any other way.”
She hung her head. “I know. It’s just that . . . Dammit, I think I’m in love with you.”
Colt had to struggle not to say, “You mean that?” He held her while she buried her face in his shoulder. Then she straightened up. Her eyes were red, but there were no tears. With a hoarse voice she said, “Let’s go take Brady to Lois’s and get this over with.”
###
Lindsay lifted the van a few meters above the ground and headed back to the farm. Colt stood by the side of the road and watched her disappear into the twilight murk. He’d told her to wait until she was at least five kilometers away before turning on her running lights. When she was out of sight, he turned around and started to briskly walk down the road toward Dixon, less than a kilometer to the south.
The farm sounds drifted toward him on a gentle breeze. They reminded him that he had become at home here, and it wasn’t just Lindsay and Brady. The whole planet seemed to have a grip on him. He grinned as he remembered Lois’s comment, “Wait till you’ve lived through a six-month winter!”
As soon as he entered the city of Dixon, the dusty dirt road gave way to a paved street, and streetlights lit the way. He slowed his pace to look as if he was simply out for a stroll and made his way toward the center of the town. No one challenged him, and as far as he could tell, no one had even noticed him.
Bigger than Sykesville, Dixon had never been a colonist point of debarkation. The residential streets had evolved rather than been planned out, which made for random intersections and, in many cases, winding roads. Still, even here an abundance of trees towered around the homes.
He passed a small square park with a statue of Radcliff Dixon in the middle. Dixon was the first planetary governor and had stayed behind to homestead when his term of office was over. He later became one of the first delegates to represent Corona at Parliament on Earth. He was instrumental in getting Parliamentary approval to form a local government, which was why he was elected the first prime minister. The statue showed him as a heroic figure over three meters tall, although in real-life he was a stout, unimposing man. Colt stood looking at the statue for a moment. Then he headed down Central Avenue.
He had only walked a few blocks from the park when a flyer in ground mode and with its top retracted slowed to his pace. The driver called to him, “Can I give you a lift?”
Briefly, Colt was struck by how that offer, an almost alien concept on Earth, was simply the action of a good neighbor here on Corona. He smiled, waved, and responded, “No thanks. I’m just out to stretch my legs.”
The driver nodded. He waved and accelerated to street speed. Colt continued straight ahead until the flyer was out of sight. He discovered that he had walked past Baldric Avenue. He had to retrace his steps for half a block. In less than a minute he was standing in front of the street door to the warehouse. He touched the annunciator plate at the side of the door. An AI responded, “May I help you?”
Colt used the name he had gotten from Fitzhugh, “I’m here to see Margaret Gilford. I believe she’s expecting me. Gus August.”
“Certainly, sir. Just a moment please.”
Almost immediately the door lock clicked and a woman’s voice announced, “Please come on in, Mr. August. We’re at the top of the stairs.”
Inside a well-lit stairway Colt made his way to the second floor and a door marked Dixon Moving and Storage. He tried the handle, and the door opened easily.
“Commander Colt!” gasped a familiar voice.
Colt froze. They know who I am? As he turned toward the speaker, Billy Hargety rose out of a waiting area easy chair, extending a hand. “My God! We thought you were dead. It’s good to see you.”
Colt stood dazed and mechanically took the politician’s outstretched hand.
“Margaret. This is Commander Colt of the Invincible. We thought he had died.” He stopped and looked at Colt. “I’m sorry, this has got to be shock for you. Please, sit down, and I’ll try to explain. Hey, and don’t worry. You haven’t been captured again.”
As Colt sat down, Margaret Gilford, the owner of Dixon Moving and Storage, walked from behind the counter with a mug of coffee in her hand. She wa
s a willowy blonde, obviously several years Colt’s senior, but remarkably attractive. She offered the coffee to Colt, who took it gratefully.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Commander.” As she sat down, Margaret said, “Tell me more, Billy.”
“Well, it’s a long story. I’ll try to cut it down some. You probably haven’t heard about the shuttle crash a few weeks back. Commander Colt was ferrying a group of us to what was supposed to be a peace conference in First Landing. Something happened to the shuttle’s drive.” He looked at Colt.
“Saboteurs had put a time-released vial of acid on the power bars,” Colt filled in. “We lost all power to the drives. Somebody apparently wanted to head off the peace conference, and Mr. Hargety here was on the suspect list at the time.”
“Hey, I want to be able to continue living here, but I’m not ready to die to do it.” He paused. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Colt grinned. “Actually, it does. From what I’ve found out since the crash, you aren’t the self-sacrificing type, much less suicidal.”
“I suppose I deserve that. I’ve been a politician ever since I got here, but I really have had the public’s interest at heart.”
“So, why did your people sabotage the Clermont shuttle?”
“My people didn’t have anything to do with sabotaging the shuttle. Most of the passengers on the shuttle were personal friends of mine, separatists and loyalists.”
“I notice your man contacted the force that captured us and the commander deferred to you — took you out first.”
“Dubrovich isn’t my man. He was a last-minute replacement when Alex Komarov couldn’t make it. And I don’t have any control over the commander. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize him. He’s Radcliff Dixon III.”
Suddenly, Colt remembered why the name on the statue was familiar. Dixon the Third was thrown out of the Academy about five years before Colt graduated. As the commander of a new cadet summer squadron, he had pushed his unit so hard that one of the fourth classmen fell off a cliff during an overnight march. The board of inquiry found that the death was caused by fatigue brought on by Dixon’s relentless pressure. Due to the circumstantial nature of the evidence and the family name, no charges were filed but he was dismissed from the Academy.
“So you don’t have anything to do with my crew members being held here?” Colt asked.
“Absolutely not. I found out they were here through one of my contacts and came to see what I could do for them. I couldn’t get past the front gate, but I did find out that Dixon is in charge. He was willing to see me, but flat-out said no to letting me even talk to your people. It was after I talked to him that your man, O’Toole, contacted me and said I should be here tonight to meet a William August. I presume that’s you.”
“Billy, from my brief experience with you, I had you figured for a self-centered, power-hungry politician.”
“Guilty.”
“Who would do anything to further his own agenda.”
“Not guilty. My people and this world come first.”
“That I’ll believe when I see it, but if O’Toole sent you here, I’ll trust his judgment. Yes, I’m William August. You don’t need to justify yourself to me,” Colt responded.
“Yes, I do,” Hargety disagreed. “Too many people have invested their lives on this planet to just yank them off it and resettle them somewhere else. I wanted to put us in a position where that couldn’t happen. It hasn’t worked out at all like I had planned.”
“From what I’ve seen, so far all you’ve established is chaos.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right,” Hargety replied. “None of this was supposed to happen. There weren’t supposed to be any deaths.”
“That’s almost unavoidable when you march armed troops into unwilling communities.”
“Those troops were only there to protect the citizens,” Hargety argued.
“Was protecting Kyoto part of that plan?”
“Look, we made some serious mistakes,” Hargety pleaded. “I know that. But none of the separatist forces had anything to do with that.”
“As I recall, you reported that the culprits were under arrest. You didn’t suggest they were loyalists.”
“They weren’t. We didn’t arrest anyone. We still don’t know where the nuke came from. It came in from the north, but we weren’t able to backtrack to its point of origin. I knew there was no point in us denying responsibility. I figured making up a story about arresting someone would be more believable than saying we didn’t do it.” He looked up at Colt, “I don’t suppose you’d believe that’s the truth.”
Colt looked Hargety in the eye, “Actually, that makes some degree of sense. I can’t see how nuking anyone would have helped your cause.”
“And I still say there weren’t supposed to be any killings. We haven’t yet figured out how these fire fights started.”
“Because someone else has been interfering?” Colt asked.
Hargety stopped, his mouth gaping. “You’re right. That’s exactly what it looks like.”
“When you’re primed for battle, all it takes is for someone to fire a weapon, especially with green troops. It would have been easy for someone who wanted to cause real trouble to get things started.”
Hargety nodded.
Margaret took advantage of the opening. “I won’t ask you two to kiss and make up, but you did leave me hanging. What happened to the shuttle?”
Hargety picked up his narration, “The shuttle made an emergency landing in the mountains. The pilot did a remarkable job. The shuttle was destroyed, but no one was seriously hurt. We were eventually all airlifted out, except for Commander Colt. He escaped and fell off a cliff. The shuttle crew was ‘taken into protective custody.’”
“Obviously you survived,” Margaret said. “How did you manage to do it, Commander?”
“A group of locals found me and gave me medical treatment until I could return to a human community.”
“Then you’ve met the natives,” Hargety said. “It was bound to happen eventually. That’s why it’s so essential to establish ourselves as an independent world immediately. As soon as that gets back to the colonization board, they’re going to demand we get off-planet.”
“The colonization board already knows about the Lodaanii,” Colt responded. “While that bothers me, it’s not my concern right now,” Colt said.
“So what, exactly, are you planning to do?”
“Get my people out and see if I can make contact with the Admiralty. I have one man who can build a subspace transmitter from parts, if it comes to that.”
“Which brings us to this. O’Toole sent it for you, Commander.” Margaret pulled a meter-long tube from under the counter and handed it to Colt.
He unscrewed the cap on one end and slid out three secure communicators, a blank badge, a pistol-shaped object, a plastic bag with a gray, claylike brick, two black capsules, and a clear sheet of display film about 60 centimeters by 80.
Hargety picked up the bag. “What’s this?”
“My guess is plastic explosive,” Colt answered. “The black capsules would be detonators.”
Hargety gingerly put the bag back on the counter.
Colt unrolled the film and spread it out on the counter. Hargety and Margaret stood on either side of him, curious. Colt pressed his thumb to a small opaque square in one corner. The film display switched on and showed a floor plan for a large warehouse. The address was for a building only six blocks away. The warehouse occupied the entire block with the center of the block serving as a landing pad and open parking for transport vans. A note on the display said, “Closed for Renovation.”
Colt spent several minutes studying the floor plans getting familiar with the layout, especially the exits. Then he selected the electrical system plan and worked his way down to the security system. The security circuits weren’t encouraging. They were the closest to foolproof he had seen. The primary sensors had nearly every square meter of the warehouse co
vered, and they were top of the line, virtually invulnerable to jamming. Their only weakness was that they relied on external power. However, a central monitor somewhere else in town pinged the security system at random intervals, so simply shutting off the building’s power wasn’t the answer. Once the power was off, he had to be able to get the crew out before reinforcements could arrive.
Fitzhugh had included comprehensive notes with the plan. Colt scrolled through them. He noted that the sensors could be deactivated if he had the three-level password, but Fitzhugh had neglected to include it. The last item caught his eye. Patrols: only two guards at night. One watches the monitors, the other patrols the warehouse corridors around the holding cells. With that he saw the reason for the badge. He picked it up and looked at Margaret. “May I use your link?”
“Certainly.” She walked over to the wall display, “Unlock, please.” The screen lit up with the AI’s image, a gray haired man resembling Margaret. “One time, unlimited access for William August. This is William August.”
“Mister August,” the AI said.
“Secure mode,” Colt said. “I’ll provide the keys manually.” The screen cleared to a light gray. A small text box appeared near the bottom, and Colt typed in a series of letters and digits, and a new screen popped up. He quickly worked his way through several screens. Then he slid the badge into a slot on the keyboard and clicked on the submit button. A moment later the completed badge, including Colt’s real name, popped out of the slot.
“You’re going to use your own name for this?” Hargety asked, clearly puzzled.
“If something happens, I don’t want them to be able to trace me back to William August,” Colt replied. He turned to Margaret. “Can you deactivate your AI without rousing suspicion?”
Margaret responded, “Maxwell, excuse us please.” She looked at Colt. “He’s in hibernation until I reactivate him.”
“Thanks.” He looked quickly back and forth between them. “Here’s how this is going to work.”
Peacemaker: The Corona Rebellion 2564 AD Page 25
