Mountain of Mars

by Glynn Stewart

  “Because there’s a lot of moving parts here, my Queen,” Damien replied. “And one of them is that the last time I was investigating something on Mars, I’m pretty sure Alexander Odysseus shot me.”

  To Damien’s surprise, he was intercepted short of the interrogation room in the medical center. Dr. Ulrike Gunther was probably the best geneticist on Mars, if not in the Protectorate, which was part of why he’d sent the assassin to her for treatment.

  She was also one of the people responsible for the health of the Royal Family in general—and the preservation of the Rune Wright genome specifically.

  “Lord Regent, I’ve been trying to schedule an appointment with you for weeks,” she told him swiftly as she fell in beside him. He slowed his pace to let her speak, even as he suspected he was going to regret it.

  “Dr. Gunther, I know what my schedule is like,” Damien admitted. “I can barely make appointments with myself. Plus, I haven’t been back on Mars for weeks,” he finished. “What’s going on?”

  “You and I need to sit down and talk about the continuity of the secondary Rune Wright bloodline,” she told him without preamble. “The establishment of a second key family is critical to the maintenance of the Rune Wright genome, secondary only to the creation of an heir for Kiera Alexander.”

  Damien winced as he continued walking, realizing he’d lost track of where he was in the clinic. Fortunately, the interrogation room was supposed to be at the back of the Royal Family’s private clinic, so forward was an option that didn’t require him asking Gunther for directions.

  “Right. Didn’t I tell you to lay off Kiera on that one?” he told her. He vaguely recalled sending that message.

  “Yes. Not exactly the response I was hoping for from my requests to speak to you, my lord,” she told him. “Even disregarding the perspective of the preservation of the Royal Family in terms of continuity of government, the protection of the genome is critical.”

  “She’s sixteen, Doctor, and she’s not getting pregnant anytime soon,” Damien replied flatly. “That’s her call to make, not yours.”

  “We don’t need a complete in vivo pregnancy, so long as there is an official announcement and transfer to the gestation chamber,” Gunther replied. “She doesn’t even need to…engage with the designated partner. We have sufficient non-Alexander material on file now to maintain the Rune Wright genome.”

  Damien stopped in his tracks and finally turned to look at the woman. Dr. Ulrike Gunther was a stick-thin woman in a pale blue lab coat over scrubs in the same color. Her hair was thin and frizzy, and her eyes were bright with passion.

  “Dr. Gunther, who is the primary donor for your non-Alexander Rune Wright genetic material?” he said, as calmly as he could.

  “You are, of course.”

  “Take one goddamn second and consider how it looks if Kiera Alexander has a child that looks remotely like me,” Damien told her. “I am her Lord Regent; she is my ward. For the next three years, I stand in loco parentis for her. Legally, right now, I am her father.

  “The child you are suggesting that we create for our legal convenience would be seen as evidence of a critical breach of trust and abuse in every sense by me.

  “So, no, Dr. Gunther, I will not attempt to change Kiera’s mind, and I will support her continued refusal to be used as a brood mare for the genome. Am I clear?”

  Gunther was silent for several seconds.

  “I had not considered that aspect,” she admitted. “But if Kiera will not, then it becomes even more critical that we extend the secondary bloodline.”

  Damien closed his eyes and silently prayed for strength.

  “You are welcome to make that argument to Admiral McLaughlin when she comes to visit,” he told the doctor. “I’m sure as hell not broaching that with my girlfriend.”

  Looking around, he finally conceded he was completely lost.

  “Right now, though, I need you to show me to the interrogation chamber and confirm that you have Odysseus’s augments disabled.”

  “Of course,” she said, her voice faint. “This way. Please understand, my lord, fully disabling augments of this type is impossible. We have him restrained and several chemical counteragents are being run through his saline drip, but he remains capable of extraordinary feats.”

  “Do I want to know what they cost him?” Damien asked.

  “About a month of life expectancy every time he fires off his artificial glands,” Gunther told him. “The human body simply cannot take the so-called ‘upgrades’ the hacks who assembled his package put together.

  “Eventually, it will kill him.”

  Damien snorted.

  “Right now, I’m more concerned about making sure he doesn’t kill me.”

  33

  The interrogation room was divided by a wall of transparent transmuted titanium. There weren’t many things in the universe that could punch through that—and even fewer that could be concealed on someone undergoing medical treatment.

  To Damien, the runes inlaid on his side of the transparent barrier were clear as day. They’d smother any magic used from the interrogatee side. He couldn’t be more secure while still technically being in the same room as Odysseus.

  That worthy was in a hospital bed that had been raised to put him in a sitting position. He was aware of Damien’s presence, watching the Lord Regent frankly through the glass despite being strapped to the bed and hooked up to an IV.

  The last piece, just in case the assassin had any tricks they weren’t aware of, was that a Royal Guard in full armor stood in each half of the room.

  “My name is Damien Montgomery,” Damien introduced himself as he took a seat. “I think we need to have a conversation, Mr. Odysseus.”

  “Last I checked, I had the right to a lawyer,” the assassin replied calmly. “I do know who you are, Lord Regent.”

  “I presumed. You have the right not to answer my questions until you see a lawyer, yes,” Damien confirmed. “Of course, you realize we don’t need you to answer them, right?”

  “I’m not even sure what I’ve been arrested for,” Odysseus replied. “I defended myself when my house was unexpectedly stormed by armored men. I have done nothing else.”

  “Mr. Odysseus, you are aware that on Mars, you are under the laws of the Kingdom of Mars, not the laws of the Protectorate, yes?” Damien asked. “Do you know what those laws lay out as the penalty for regicide?”

  The divided room was silent, the Royal Guard looming like frozen red statues while Alexander Odysseus regarded the Lord Regent.

  “Last I heard,” he finally said slowly, “that accident was being investigated by a special prosecutor.”

  “Prosecutor Vemulakonda’s investigation serves as a very useful smoke screen, doesn’t it?” Damien asked. “We have retrieved the original security system footage from the hangar, Mr. Odysseus. Tell me, how does one destroy a shuttle with a class three arc cutter and a timer?”

  “I can’t say for certain,” Odysseus replied. “I imagine you’d have to undo a lot of safeties on the cutter. It’s really not supposed to cut an active antimatter line.”

  Damien smiled thinly.

  “Who paid you, Alexander?” he asked. “Between the evidence on your estate and the footage we have, you’re not walking out of this a free man. You do have the option to walk out of it a living man.

  “I’m prepared to cut a deal. I’ll even include the attempted assassination of a Hand in the crimes we’ll take the death penalty off the table for.”

  Odysseus raised a hand to object, then lowered it.

  “I found the bullets you shot me with in your armory, Mr. Odysseus,” Damien told him. “They’re functionally unique, so that makes for a rather damning piece of evidence, doesn’t it? I have enough to shoot you for two crimes, and I’m wondering what a comparison of your travels over the last few years against unsolved murders would turn up.”

  He held out a hand, palm up.

  “And all of those dead people
deserve justice, don’t you think?” he asked softly. “But at the end of the day, I need to know who tried to break the Protectorate. I need to know who hired you. Help me find that out, and you’ll face a life sentence in a relatively comfortable prison.

  “Refuse, and you will have a very efficient and very fair trial before you are taken out and shot.”

  The silence hung again for at least thirty seconds.

  “Call me Xander, Lord Regent,” Odysseus told him. “Then ask your questions. I know when I’m well and truly fucked.”

  “All right, Xander. You were hired to kill Desmond Michael Alexander the Third,” Damien agreed. “Who hired you?”

  “Answer is always more complicated than you want it to be,” Odysseus warned. “I can tell you that. Most notably, I wasn’t specifically hired to kill the Mage-King.” He snorted. “I worked out what had happened afterwards.”

  “You knew you were sabotaging a Royal shuttle,” Damien countered.

  “Yes, of course. That was what I was paid to do,” the assassin confirmed. “I didn’t know who was going to be on it. That fleet gets used for a bunch of different people, even Hands when they’re on-planet. If I’d known the target was the Mage-King, I’d have asked for a lot more money.”

  Damien managed not to do anything drastic in response to the casual tone Xander Odysseus used to admit he would have taken the job to kill Desmond.

  “What did you know?” he asked.

  “I was given a specific shuttle to sabotage, complete details on the security systems around it, and a way to confirm that the processing edit to protect me was online,” Odysseus laid out. “The edit was supposed to be live in the feed, though I’m guessing it failed.”

  And that was why both sets of footage looked original, Damien suspected. The footage had already been edited by the time it hit the security systems storage databanks. Only the fact that the Royal Guards’ secondary system was feeding directly from the cameras had saved the data they had used to find Odysseus.

  “The money was right and the client wanted a ghost job, no sightings, no evidence.” Odysseus shook his head. “I don’t know how they got the network overwatch they promised, but everything I saw said it worked. I walked out of there clean. Money arrived on schedule and I had every reason to think there wasn’t even grounds for suspicion. My mistress is a heavy sleeper; she’d swear up and down I spent the entire night with her.”

  “So who was the client?” Damien demanded.

  “I don’t know.” The assassin shrugged. “That’s how this works, Lord Montgomery. I never know. Dead drops and coded classified listings, cash credsticks and packages of special toys…no names, not even faces. I never know anyone.”

  “That’s not enough, Xander,” Damien warned. “If I don’t have the hands that paid you, I don’t have grounds not to throw you to the wolves.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I know,” Odysseus said, spreading his hands. “Get someone in here with a brain and recorder, and I’ll walk you through the entire process. I can’t give you a name or a face, Montgomery. But I’d hope you have enough to go one step farther than I can.”

  “And I’m guessing the same for the time you took a shot at me?” Damien asked coldly.

  “Only difference that time was that I got the bullets as partial payment in advance. Never seen anything like them.”

  “Me either,” the Lord Regent told him coldly. “It appears, Mr. Odysseus, that I am wasting my time here. I will be sending someone else to take down that walkthrough. Don’t lie to her. The moment I think you’re spinning your wheels or holding anything back, the deal is off.”

  Damien wasn’t nearly as okay with cold-blooded execution as he was trying to imply, but he would be damned if the Mage-King’s assassin walked free. Either Odysseus would give them enough to nail the people who’d hired him, or Damien would swallow his qualms.

  He was hoping for a mastermind. He’d settle for the hands that pulled the trigger.

  34

  Damien double-checked his schedule as he reached his office, confirming that nothing was actively scheduled for at least a few minutes, then buried his face in his hands. He had to be on a shuttle in an hour, heading to what he was sure would be another fascinating conference with the Council of the Protectorate and the Constitutional Committees.

  Right now, though, he could rest. Or at least bury his face in his hands and try to massage away the headache trying to dig into his skull.

  “I know that posture,” a familiar voice said calmly. “Ms. Waller doesn’t have quite as much experience in recognizing when she shouldn’t be sending people in to see you. Even old companions.”

  If he hadn’t recognized Robert Christoffsen’s voice, he’d probably have raised his head more quickly. As it was, he massaged his temples one more time as his old political aide took a seat across from him.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier,” the old man in the conservative suit told him when he finally did look up. “The last time you called me up, you disappeared before I could make contact. The Governor is far too willing to lean on me when I’m present.”

  He shook his head. Dr. Robert Christoffsen had multiple PhDs in law and political science; and had served two terms as Governor of Tara. He’d also spent over a year as Damien’s political advisor when Damien had been a “mere” Hand.

  “I can’t begrudge Her Excellency my services while I’m on Tara,” he admitted. “But the Lord Regent of Mars, of course, calls with a voice few will deny the priority of.”

  “Thank you, Professor,” Damien finally said. “I’ve missed your sage advice for the last year. I wish I had waited before diving into the mission in Republic space. You’d have been valuable.”

  “I can’t even imagine what kind of shit-show Niska dragged you into,” Christoffsen replied. “Where is he, anyway?”

  “On Legatus, helping keep order,” the Lord Regent told him. “The discussion around his fate goes slowly, but I don’t believe he’s going to end up dodging the worst punishment I have available for his sins.”

  The older man laughed.

  “You’re going to make him Governor of Legatus, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Most likely,” Damien confirmed.

  “It’s a good call,” the ex-Governor told him. “Military service provides a useful skill set, and he’s also a man who was in the beating heart of the secession movement for a long time. Above all else, he’s not seen as Mars’s man. He broke with the Republic, but on ethical grounds that very few people can argue with.”

  “And because he broke with the Republic, I trust him,” Damien confirmed. “He’ll have a few Martian advisors around him and be ruling an occupied world, but he’s one of theirs. We’ll damn him with the taint of collaborator, but he’s already marked with that.”

  “What happens to Legatus in the end?” Christoffsen asked. “And the rest of the Republic, once this is done?”

  “Alexander is preparing to move on Nueva Bolivia, but that’s going to take time,” Damien admitted. “We have the force in place to hit and reduce their strongholds in sequence, leaving the less-critical systems to be swept later or by secondary task forces.”

  He shrugged.

  “Or at least, so Admiral Alexander tells me, and she’s been an admiral for almost as long as I’ve been alive.”

  “Naval officer,” Christoffsen corrected. “Her ability to enter a career beyond heir was limited for most of her life. She didn’t enter the Navy until she was in her fifties.”

  “I’ve read her record now,” Damien replied. “There was nepotism involved, no doubt, but she made Rear Admiral in twenty-one years. So, I suppose, she’s been an admiral for as long as Kiera has been alive.”

  “And a naval officer for as long as you have been alive, yes,” the Professor confirmed. “I’d suggest running her plan by other officers if you can. I presume we have some kind of high command on Mars?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Damien muttered.
“Five thousand years of recorded military history is good to have, but the Royal Martian Navy never expected to fight a war. Our High Command is brand new and still finding their feet.”

  “And how are you going to fix that?” the advisor asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “I have notes,” the Lord Regent admitted with a sigh. “Right now, it’s around…fourth on my priority list? Maybe fifth.”

  “The Protectorate is at war and the war is fifth on your priority list?” Christoffsen asked slowly. “I did not make it back fast enough.”

  Damien shook his head and sighed again.

  “Computer, seal the room,” he ordered aloud. “Black Royal Protocol.”

  Shutters closed over the transparent titanium windows and the door. They weren’t any harder to penetrate than the existing security measures…but they completed the Faraday cage. Just in case someone had bugged the office of the Lord Regent of Mars.

  “This room should be secure, shouldn’t it?” Christoffsen asked—as he leaned forward and steepled his hands in preparation for the conversation to come.

  “It should be. But there are matters that less than a dozen people alive know about—and most of those are Royal Guard who have the minimum possible briefing,” Damien told him. “But I need you fully inside.”

  “All right, my lord. I am yours to command,” the Professor agreed.

  “I know. And if you were a Mage, my friend, I’d be hanging a damn Hand around your neck right now,” the Lord Regent noted. “You may still end up with a Warrant, but I’ve already got a Voice in the middle of this and her skill set is more immediately applicable.”

  “You have my attention, my lord.”

  “I’d hope so,” Damien said with a chuckle. “Our number one priority is very, very clear: protect and train Kiera Michelle Alexander so that she is able and ready to rule as Mage-Queen of Mars on July twenty-eighth, twenty-four sixty-three.