by Piers Platt
“Martin,” Dasi radioed.
“We see them,” Beauceron replied, his voice grim.
Rath fired again. In the distance, he saw the round knock a soldier over, but the fallen enemy was soon replaced by a half dozen more, who continued to bound forward, closing in on the raised platform.
“You guys better get back to your positions,” Rath said, keeping his eyes trained down the rifle.
“Yeah,” Emeka agreed, in a hushed tone. “I think we better.”
26
Paisen slotted the final piece of the device underneath the Rampart Guardian’s engine nacelle, and held it in place while Vence secured it with a pair of bolts. Inside her helmet, a drop of sweat rolled down her brow – she blew it away, frowning. When Vence had finished screwing the piece in, Paisen pulled herself over to a small control panel and turned it on. The screen ran a brief diagnostics check, and then flashed a green check mark symbol.
“Good to go,” Paisen said. “It’s got an uninterrupted connection to the FTL initiator.”
Paisen peeled the panel off of the device and strapped it to her forearm. Her suit’s long-range radio crackled to life.
“Orbital Team, this is Dasi,” Dasi’s voice came through. “Understand you won’t be replying, but hopefully you’re receiving this. Situation report follows.”
In the background, Paisen heard the distinct sound of gunfire. Through the faceplates of their helmets, Paisen and Vence locked eyes.
“Spaceport and transfer station remain under our control, despite ongoing Jokuan counter-attacks,” Dasi continued. “We ran into a friendly element down here, someone you thought you might see up there in orbit.”
“Rath!” Paisen said, her eyes widening.
“How the hell did he get down there?” Vence asked, rhetorically.
Paisen shook her head. “No clue. But it’s good – Beauceron and Dasi are going to need all the help they can get, by the sound of it.”
“That’s the good news,” Dasi told them. “The bad news is we also received a transmission from Anchorpoint a little while ago. The gist of it is that they found a surviving senator, and he’s ordered us to abort the entire operation. We, uh … well, we told them to stick it up their ass, frankly. We couldn’t get out now if we wanted to. But I thought you should know the reality of the situation. They won’t be sending any reinforcements, and the Fleet Reaction Force is staying put. They’re hanging us out to dry.”
Paisen arched her eyebrows. “Christ,” she said. “Fucking politicians.”
“Anyway, if you guys want to abort, we understand,” Dasi said. “In fact, you should probably get out while you still have that option.” They heard a loud explosion. “I’ve gotta go.”
The transmission ended.
“What do you think?” Paisen asked Vence.
Vence shook her head. “I think they’re fucked.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Your call,” Vence said.
Paisen looked out across the fleet, at the curving atmosphere of Tarkis below them. “Fuck it. We’re staying.”
Vence surveyed their handiwork, and then looked back at Paisen. “Would be kind of stupid to fly all the way out here for nothing,” she agreed.
Paisen gave the device a final once over, and then untethered a separate large, metal cylinder from beside the engine, and swung it slowly away from the hull. “Grab the other side,” she told Vence.
The two women pushed off of the engine mount, and then used micro-bursts from their thrusters to move slowly topside, pulling the cylindrical device along behind them. They slowed as they neared the top of the ship’s engine bank, and Paisen put out a hand, arresting their forward progress.
“What the fuck is this?” she asked.
On the Rampart Guardian’s port side, a small transport ship lay docked via a ship-to-ship boarding tube.
“They must have come alongside while we were working down by the engine mount. Resupply ship of some kind?” Vence guessed, holding the lip of the hull in one hand. “Actually, never mind, that’s a troop transport. Must be someone transferring on or off the Guardian.”
“Hang on,” Paisen said. She accessed her neural interface, and cued up her recorded visual feed from the day prior. “I’ve seen that ship before, I think.” She fast-forwarded through the feed, pausing when she reached Atalia and Beauceron’s briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It’s Yo-Tsai’s ship,” Paisen said. “The same one he met Rath and Ricken on, back on Jokuan.”
“Well, is he coming or going?” Vence asked.
“I don’t know,” Paisen said.
“You want to try to mine it?” Vence asked.
Suddenly, the docking tube retracted back into the transport, and the craft’s engines lit up.
“Ah, shit,” Paisen swore.
The transport pulled away from the Guardian in a slow curve, and headed toward Tarkis.
“Yo-Tsai could still be on the Guardian,” Vence said.
“Let’s hope so,” Paisen agreed. “Come on.”
They hauled the large cylinder over the top of the ship’s hull, pausing briefly to maneuver it around a large radar dome. Then Paisen paused, comparing their progress along the hull to an internal schematic of the ship on her heads-up display.
“About three more meters,” she said. “That will put us right over the bridge.”
It took a few more seconds of maneuvering via their thrusters, and then they had the cylinder in place. Paisen pulled it downward, and it came to rest against the thick heat shield of the ship’s skin. Vence bent over, flipping down clamps around the base of the device, until it was locked into place, standing upright against the hull.
Paisen touched a button on the cylinder’s side, and two doors swung upward on opposite sides of the cylinder, rising up like the wings of a large bird. Paisen stepped inside one of the doors, positioning herself inside the cylinder. Vence stepped through the door on the opposite side, and then the doors swung back down again, sealing them inside the tube. A small porthole set in the door in front of Paisen gave her a view outside the tube – she was looking down the nose of the ship, straight ahead of the Rampart Guardian.
“Are we clear?” Vence asked, facing the opposite direction.
“No,” Paisen said. “There’s a landing ship a few kilometers ahead of us. It’s drifting relative to us, though. We should clear it in a few seconds.”
Vence put her back up against Paisen’s, and drew her sub-machine gun from a mount along her right thigh. She checked the weapon briefly, then unfolded the stock and set it in the crook of her shoulder. “Ready when you are.”
“Okay. Stand by.” Paisen took out her own weapon, and then held up her left arm, where the control pad was still strapped, awaiting her command. In the distance, she watched as the Jokuan landing ship moved slowly out of their path.
“Fuck, I hope this works,” Vence observed.
Paisen held her finger over the control pad. “Three, two, one, mark.”
27
“Hello, Shofel.”
In his hospital bed, Shofel awoke with a start. Senator Foss sat in a chair at the end of the bed, watching him impassively. Shofel swallowed nervously.
“Hello, sir.”
“The doctors tell me you had quite a bad concussion. How are you feeling?” Foss asked.
“Better,” Shofel said, cautiously. “They want to release me soon.”
“That’s good,” Foss said, smiling calmly.
Shofel scratched self-consciously at the skin of his right wrist, where a handcuff kept him bound to the bed’s railing.
“You were arrested,” Foss stated flatly, eyeing the handcuffs.
“Yes,” Shofel admitted.
Foss looked up at Shofel. “What did you tell Hawken?”
“Nothing,” Shofel said. “I swear.”
“Mm,” Foss said, non-committal. “I wonder.”
He reached out a hand, and Shofel shrank away from him in fear. But the senator he
ld a small key, and with it, he unlocked the handcuff, releasing the younger man.
“I’m not under arrest anymore?” Shofel asked.
“No,” Foss said. “District Attorney Hawken never got the chance to file the paperwork. And he’s somewhat … indisposed right now. Which means you can come back to work right away.”
“That’s a relief,” Shofel said, quietly.
“Gather your things,” Foss told him. “I have my car here. I’ll take you home. I’m sure you’re looking forward to seeing your lovely wife again.”
Shofel swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up slowly, bracing himself on the bed’s rail.
“Events like this serve as useful reminders, Shofel,” Foss observed, standing up as well. “They remind us just how precious life is. And how fragile.”
* * *
General Childers sighed. He rubbed at his temple with the palm of his hand, but no amount of pressure made a difference to his pounding headache. Finally, he looked up at the other committee members, back in their usual spots around the conference table. Most of them had slept for a few hours, and showered. Childers had opted to monitor the reports from Tarkis, and had missed his opportunity.
Not that any of them look particularly well-rested. We’re all running on fumes.
“When he made the decision, District Attorney Hawken said he took full responsibility,” the fire department head pointed out.
Childers held up a hand. “We’ll have plenty of time to lay blame later,” he said. “Right now I’m more worried about what we’re going to do about the situation. Senator Foss negotiated some kind of truce with General Yo-Tsai—”
“A truce that we still don’t know any of the details of,” the utilities head interjected.
“… but a promise was made, nonetheless,” Childers said. “And now we’ve got Federacy officers breaking that truce, and fighting in an actual war on Tarkis. We need to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
“They should never have started that fight,” the fire department head argued. “We sent them the order to abort.”
“How many times do we have to say it?” the public relations representative asked, exasperated. “They were probably already too far along to turn back.”
“I think they just decided to ignore us,” the fire department head said.
“Enough,” Childers said. “Where is Senator Foss?” He looked around the room, but the other members merely shrugged. “Goddamn it.” Childers pointed at a patrolman standing near the doorway. “Find the senior Senate Guard on the floor. Tell him or her to contact Senator Foss’ detail. I need an encrypted line opened up to the senator immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
It took them two minutes, but finally, the room’s phone line chirped.
“Senator Foss?” Childers asked.
“Speaking,” Foss replied. “What is it, General?”
“Sir, I have an update from Tarkis. It seems the team we sent there is engaged in a running battle with the Jokuan forces.”
“What?” Foss barked. “General, I ordered you to abort that mission.”
“Sir, I tried. I relayed your order. Detective Beauceron informed me that his team was unable to comply.”
“He’s disobeying a direct order – that’s treason,” Foss said.
“No, sir – it’s insubordination.”
“I don’t care what the correct term is,” Foss replied, tersely. “He’s putting the truce I so carefully negotiated at risk. I want him arrested at once.”
“I can try, sir,” Childers said. “But I think it’s unlikely that any of the police officers on Tarkis will carry out that order.”
“Damn it,” Foss swore. “Are any of my orders being carried out, General? I suppose the Fleet Reaction Force is still activating, and your reinforcements are still on their way to Tarkis, too?”
“No, sir,” Childers said. “The FRF activation order was terminated. I just confirmed that personally. And none of my officers are headed to Tarkis. Our forces there are on their own.”
“Good,” Foss grunted. “In that case, they’ll pay dearly for their foolishness.”
“Sir, there’s still the matter of the drones. Yo-Tsai is likely to initiate strikes on other planets as a result of our team’s actions.”
“Well, what do you propose I do about that?” Foss sneered.
“I don’t know, sir,” Childers replied. “We started to discuss it, but so far we don’t have any solid ideas.”
“Fantastic. I see I’m the only one left on Anchorpoint capable of making decisions in a time of crisis. I’ll have to contact General Yo-Tsai again sooner than I had planned. This will make the next phase of negotiations much more difficult, thanks to your officers, General.”
“What will you tell him, sir?” the public relations representative asked.
“The truth,” Foss said. “A rogue element within the government sanctioned these counter-attacks, but it has been brought under control. I ordered the operation to be canceled, but the officers on the ground have taken matters into their own hands. I take no responsibility for their actions, and leave it to General Yo-Tsai to deal with them as harshly as he chooses.”
“Sir, I don’t think that’s a sound strategy,” the public relations representative said. She crossed her arms, frowning at the nearest microphone, embedded in the table top. “Yo-Tsai will blame you, whether you take responsibility or not. He’ll think you’re lying – stalling for time while the operation proceeds.”
“I have spent my career convincing people to believe in me, young lady,” Foss spat. “That’s why I’m a senator, and you’re a low-level media liaison who is clearly in well over her head. Negotiations with a washed-up soldier from some backwater planet don’t worry me.”
The public relations representative threw up her hands in mute disgust, and sat back in her chair.
“May I ask how you intend to convince General Yo-Tsai not to launch the darts, Senator?” Childers asked the phone, tiredly.
“I intend to give him the full details of Hawken’s hare-brained plan,” Foss said, simply. “Including the plan to infiltrate his command vessel, and seize control of the drones.”
“That’s signing their death sentence, Senator,” Childers said, scowling.
“I hope so,” Foss agreed, and they heard him hang up.
28
Standing in the ship’s bustling operations center, General Yo-Tsai watched the shining white hull of the Rampart Guardian slip past the exterior viewports, as his command transport started its descent toward Tarkis’ upper atmosphere. Then he frowned and turned his attention back to the viewscreen, and the video call with Senator Foss.
“I don’t particularly care how it happened, Senator,” Yo-Tsai said. “The reality is that we had a deal, and you have broken it. You promised me unrestricted freedom to conduct my operations, yet Federacy forces have seized the transfer station, and are currently battling my troops on the ground, too.”
“But they’re disobeying orders,” Foss protested. “I can’t be held responsible for their actions.”
“That sounds like your problem, Senator, not mine.”
“What would you have me do?” Foss asked, exasperated.
“Nothing,” Yo-Tsai told him, flatly. “In a matter of minutes, your rebellious troops will have been captured or killed, and your ploy will have failed.”
“I called you in order to reestablish our truce, in good faith,” Foss spluttered. “I’m offering you valuable information about their operational plan.”
“That information might have been helpful an hour ago, before they executed the plan,” Yo-Tsai replied. “Now it’s worthless. An empty gesture from a desperate coward.”
Foss bristled visibly at the jab. “Allow me to remind you that the FRF is still standing by, awaiting my order to attack your fleet.”
“The moment you give that order, I will launch drone attacks, with the full complement of PKDs,” Yo-Ts
ai said, crossing his arms. “If the FRF has even been activated – which I doubt – it will have no Federacy left to defend.”
Foss’ jaw worked in mute frustration. “This is no way to conduct negotiations!” he seethed.
Outside the viewports, Yo-Tsai saw the surface of Tarkis approaching rapidly. “You fail to understand that this is not politics, Senator,” Yo-Tsai said. “It’s war. And in war, the two sides don’t negotiate, the victor simply dictates his terms. Our deal, such as it was, is no longer valid. In addition, I’m initiating a drone strike on every planet in the Federacy, in retaliation for police actions on Tarkis. This strike will be a limited one – we’ll merely kill a few thousand people on each planet. But if more of your forces resist me in the future, it will not be the last strike. Goodbye, Senator.”
Yo-Tsai cut the feed, and then turned to the nearest battle captain.
“Signal the Rampart Guardian: launch drone strikes.”
* * *
“Three, two, one, mark.”
Inside the metal cylinder atop the Rampart Guardian’s bridge, Paisen pressed the Initiate button on her control pad. Far away at the stern of the ship, the device she and Vence had so carefully constructed sent a complex burst of electrical signals along the engine’s control circuits. The surge overloaded the ship’s safety protocols, and started a chain reaction within the engine core that lit the main engines, and seconds later, initiated the ship’s faster-than-light drive.
The ship bucked forward, and then jumped into FTL travel without warning. In a matter of seconds, they had left the rest of the fleet and Tarkis far behind.
Paisen activated the metal cylinder she and Vence were standing inside. The bottom of the device detonated below their feet, and sent a super-heated jet of plasma straight down through the ship’s hull, carving open a neat circle the exact size of the cylinder. A split second later, a small rocket engine on top of the cylinder activated, blasting the cylinder – with Paisen and Vence inside it – down through the new hole in the ship’s hull. It jolted to a stop, and the two doors swung up simultaneously, revealing Paisen and Vence, their weapons at the ready. The two women, standing back to back, opened fire on the bridge crew and battle staff below, sweeping the room with cold precision. Meanwhile, the roof of the cylinder above them sprayed a specialized foam across the ceiling, resealing the hull it had just breached. The foam was still hardening when Paisen stopped firing. She dropped the magazine from her weapon and loaded a fresh one.
