Even if it didn’t turn out to be big enough to bring the Fausts down, it would certainly be enough to force the Fausts to pay the department an obscene amount of money to keep from being prosecuted and that would mean bonuses for everyone.
Then the Marshals showed up and took control of everything. A deputy, Lenhard didn’t much care for, had mobilized the Sturmjäger in a citywide search without so much as an explanation as to what was going on.
Lenhard chewed harder on his caffeine stick. He had protested such heavy-handed tactics and was humiliated in front of his subordinates when they proved effective. The Sturmjäger found and engaged a pair of suspects skulking around on the rooftops, before being themselves attacked by several off-worlders dressed in civilian clothes. All ten of the Sturmjäger were severely injured in the firefight and one suspect had been killed when she tried to escape. Only the arrival of several more units kept the mysterious attackers from freeing their companion, forcing them to flee into the city, disappearing as quickly as they had appeared.
“This will be my only chance to find out what is going on, while Molotop oversees the autopsy,” Lenhard grumbled to himself.
The prisoner groggily regained consciousness. “I’m really thirsty,” he muttered, “I need a double-Silber, hold the ice.” The man opened his blood-shot eyes and looked at Lenhard then around the room.
My name is Officer Lenhard and I have some questions for you to answer.
“Why do you guys always keep these interrogation rooms so bare?” the man asked through dry lips. “Is it some psychological thing to keep us from looking around, or do all you police guys hate decor?”
Lenhard leaned in close and slapped the prisoner roughly on the cheek.
“What kind of interrogator slaps?” the man said spitefully. “You should be a man and hit me or something!”
Lenhard shrugged and punched the man as hard as he could.
“Thank you,” the man said, a small trail of blood spilling out of the corner of his mouth. Lenhard could tell from the man’s dilated pupils that the drug was now talking full effect.
“You’re a native Arduran, aren’t you,” Lenhard deduced.
“Yep,” the man said happily. “Arch-duke Ferdinan Jamie Kielter the third, Don of the Carrion Privateers.”
“Why would you be helping these filthy foreigners?” Lenhard asked.
Don Kielter looked at him blankly. “Money and boredom,” he answered frankly.
“What is their connection to the Fausts?” Lenhard demanded.
“They want to get into Louie’s pants, of course,” Don Kielter gurgled. “But don’t tell them I told you that, ‘cause they won’t pay me if you do and I’m really short on cash right now.”
“Tell me about this woman,” Lenhard ordered, holding up a security holo-vid of the woman spending time with the Faust boys.
“She’s a brute; she’s stuck-up, spiteful, and surly. A total kill-joy.”
“Why is she here?”
Don Kielter strained at this one. “I’m not really sure. I think she’s trying to overthrow Inami.”
“Who’s Inami?”
“I think she’s, like, her queen, or something.”
“And why does she want to do that?”
“Because she doesn’t want to be used for breeding, of course.”
Lenhard reeled back to hit the man again, but the room vibrated and their ears popped from a sudden change in air pressure. The lights flickered for a second and small trails of dust rained down from cracks in the ceiling.
“What’s going on out there?” Lenhard barked as he threw open the steel door to the cell.
“Herr Lenhard, we have reports of gunfire in the medical block,” answered one of the two guards standing in the hallway.
“Rouse the guardhouse and have them seal off the block and call in the Sturmjäger Guard,” Lenhard commanded as he closed the door again. He was growing concerned. If this man’s companions were attempting some sort of jailbreak, they were either incredibly stupid, or they possessed the strength and resources to actually pull something like that off, which would mean that he was in over his head. Lenhard wondered it was time to call the Kaiser.
“So how are the Fausts going to help her overthrow the royalty on her planet?” Lenhard asked, a little daunted by the scale of all of this. “It’s no wonder the Marshals are involved.”
Don Kielter looked at him, a little confused.
“By courting her and taking her to some ceremony, I think,” Don Kielter mentioned.
Lenhard stood up and took out a fresh nicotine stick and talked to himself, a bad habit he’d picked up. “I didn’t think the Faust family had the resources to attempt a coup de grâce on a planetary ruler, but it certainly sounds like their style. If they marry their son to the new ruler, they’d elevate their family to royal status, which would grant them diplomatic immunity to any crimes previously committed on other worlds.” Lenhard had heard rumors that the Faust family was preparing to move from Ardura. Now it looked like they were planning on acquiring legal exemption for their entire syndicate as well.
“What is your part in all of this?” Lenhard asked.
“I was hired to be a consultant on Arduran customs, but they don’t pay me very well.”
“Now the pieces fit. Don Kielter is just a hire-on, so it makes sense that he’d only have a cursory understanding of what his employers were up to.”
Lenhard paused. “What were you and your dead companion doing on that rooftop?
Don Kielter chuckled to himself wearily. “Do you actually think she’s still dead?”
Lenhard was about to ask another question when he heard gunfire in the hallway. He pulled out his stun-pistol and opened the door to the hallway, where the two guards were engaged in a firefight with a desk. The metal desk had been turned on its side and was being pushed down the hallway; the brown energy blasts from the guards’ stun-rifles splashed harmlessly along its surface and flowed into the floor and walls like water. There was a fist-sized hole burnt into its center and a stubby stun-rifle stuck out and fired on the guards, who screamed in agony as their nervous systems were overloaded, their unconscious bodies falling limply to the ground.
Lenhard moved to slam the steel door shut again, but the desk accelerated and jammed into the doorframe at a skewed angle, wedging a corner inside the room and preventing the door from closing. Lenhard backed up and aimed his pistol at the hole. His repeated brown blasts arced over the weapon sticking out at him before his attacker fired again, hitting Lenhard squarely in the face.
“You better be in there, I’ve already checked the others,” Keiko cried out as she yanked at the desk, trying to pry it free of the doorframe.
“That’s so sweet that you came for me,” Don Kielter said dreamily.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Keiko grunted, as she pulled the desk out and tossed it aside. “I only came for you because I didn’t want you to cave under interrogation and get us all captured.” Keiko was wearing nothing but a torn up doctor’s coat, on top of which she had hastily fastened a stolen riot jacket and helmet.
“Geez. What happened to you?” Don Kielter asked, recoiling at the sight of her as she untied his restraints.
“Oh, nothing much. Just woke up on an autopsy table after being dissected. How about you?”
“Um, they just asked me a bunch of questions,” he admitted.
Keiko paused at this, her hair turning to a sharp magenta.
“That is so typical,” she complained, picking up Leonhard’s pistol from the floor and tossing it to Don Kielter. “Dissect the off-worlder, but only ask the Arduran a bunch of slow-ball questions. Then I come all this way and you’ve already been interrogated by the time I get here.” Keiko hung her head down in frustration and then jumped back out into the hall.
“Hey, don’t blame me if they think I’m less of a threat than you are. You’re the one who just cleared out an entire wing of the Polizeirevier,” he complained groggily as
he followed her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Price of Exorcism
The very concept of a lifetime sentence in a prison would be an affront to the Man of Light, for the path of redemption lies not in idleness and immobility, but activity and industry. These criminals serve out their sentences in service of our Confederacy as Atrudi, adding to the whole that they once drew from. What once was a parasite, is now a resource.
-Governor Miguel Sanchez of Gobiern 5119-5155rl
The shuttlebay felt very empty with only two people in it among the crates and equipment. Sorano was keeping herself busy by working on the Kanochan, while Michi occupied her time cooking on her makeshift grill.
“I must have rebuilt this interface ten times,” Sorano complained as she wiped sweat off of her forehead. “The readout keeps saying there are some faulty wires in the thing, but I don’t buy it anymore. I think this thing just gets lonely and wants to be visited.”
Michi grunted a vague acknowledgment as she scrolled through her holo-catalogue of baby cribs and stared distantly at the wall. Sorano looked up and noticed her uneasiness.
“We follow mission protocol, Mich. We maintain link silence for another three hours and then dust off to a new location and begin a search.”
“I know that,” Michi said, breaking her stare and finishing the last bite of pasta she was eating. Michi took the dirty plate and placed it on a stack in the sink that threatened to topple over.
“Hey, I got a question for you, Mich,” Sorano grunted as she tightened a stem bolt. “Did the dirty dish fairy say when she was going to come by and wash those for you?”
Michi stared at Sorano stupidly.
“Oh, she didn’t huh? Then, I guess you’re going to have to do it.”
Michi stuck her tongue out.
The door to the bay opened up and Nariko walked in, looking very satisfied with herself.
“Well, that’s one less person to look for,” Michi said, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Wait a minute,” Sorano cautioned, looking Nariko over suspiciously. “Your clothes are all wrinkled up.”
“Her kesshouhin has been washed off her face,” Michi added, looking wary.
“And she’s looking awfully chipper...” Sorano’s jaw dropped and she gasped in horror, “You didn’t sleep with him did you?”
“Will you grow up?” Nariko rebuked, putting her hands on her hips. “Nori’s stupid drug knocked me out and he put me in his bed. Nothing happened.”
The door opened again and Ami and Sakurako came in, looking tired.
“What took you guys so long?” Michi asked, looking thankful.
“We spent the night shaking the police,” Sakurako reported.
“So, what happened while we were gone?” Ami asked.
Sorano pointed an energetic finger at Nariko. “Nariko slept with the Faust boy.”
Ami was crushed and looked at Nariko harshly. “Nariko Amano,” she scolded, “I didn’t know you were that kind of girl.”
“I’m not any kind of girl!” Nariko yelled.
“All right, all right,” Michi calmed. “Let’s hear the results of your mission last night.”
Nariko gave a slanted smile and fingered the diamond engagement necklace around her neck that Brannon had given her.
“What would you expect? I am an Amano, after all,” she bragged.
The shuttlebay doors opened and Keiko and Don Kielter entered. Somewhere along the way, Keiko had acquired a long raincoat that she was now wearing. They both greeted the people in the room wearily.
Sorano pointed an energetic finger at Nariko. “Nariko slept with the Faust boy.”
Keiko turned to Nariko, her hair jade with concern, but could tell from Nariko’s humorless expression that it wasn’t true. “We’ve got bigger problems than Nariko’s infidelity,” she explained.” The Don and I were taken to the Polizeirevier and we smashed the place up pretty good on our way out.”
“This location is no longer secure,” Nariko determined. “We’ll need to load up the Kanochan and depart in one hour. We’ll relocate to the beta site in the Nebelhaft foothills.”
“There’s another thing to consider,” Keiko warned, “The Marshals are here. They were involved in the attack last night.”
Everyone went silent, considering the weight of the situation.
“Let’s go, Shiro, we leave in one hour,” Nariko ordered, clapping her hands to snap them out of it.
The shuttlebay became a beehive of activity as everything was repackaged and loaded, occasionally thrown and, in at least one case, scooted with the side of a foot up the loading ramp and into the shuttle.
“You know,” Ami announced to the room while she packed away the remaining ration packets, “if Nari-chan is engaged now, we really should throw her a party or something.”
“You mean like a bachelorette party?” Keiko asked as she wrapped up some spare crystal shards in plastic packing material.
“Yeah,” Ami bounced, “we could make a cake and get some streamers.”
“And get some shiny male star-kin to come in and dance for her,” Michi teased as she walked by with a generator.
“I volunteer for sentry duty during Ami’s party,” Sorano commented as she loaded the data slates into their transport cases.
Ami became sullen and murmured to herself as she worked.
“Don’t mind them,” Keiko said in her serene tone, patting Ami on the head. “I thought it was a nice idea.”
“I’m not a puppy,” Ami complained, swatting Keiko’s hand away. Keiko chuckled and moved on.
Almost at the very moment that they finished loading up the Kanochan, the doors opened up and Taka waltzed into the shuttlebay, arms loaded down with carrying bags.
“Figures you’d show up now that the work’s all done,” Sorano complained, “What, did you wait out in the hall until just the right time?”
Taka rolled her eyes and walked over to an empty table and tossed her bags on top of it. Small cylinders and fruits rolled out of one bag, grabbing everyone’s attention.
“What the jinku is all of this?” Keiko asked, pulling a fur stole out of a bag. “I thought you blew your expense account gambling?”
“When it comes to getting free stuff, this female body is the way to go,” Taka swanked.
“These were gifts?” Nariko asked, pulling out a fluffy boa. “Why would people give you these?”
“Didn’t you know, Oppa-mon? Men are very predictable. If you suggest something lewd, they’ll give you anything you want.”
“And I’m sure you were all too eager to please,” Nariko slighted, “but we brought you here to do a job.”
Taka groaned painfully and threw her head back. “By the Luminarch’s teeth, you are so boring,” she exclaimed, rubbing her eyes. “The sale happens tomorrow morning, right?”
Nariko nodded gravely.
“And I assume that with the heightened security we’ll now need a passcard to enter Platin District.”
Nariko nodded again.
“Good,” Taka smiled. “Then you’ll need this.”
Taka reached into her blouse and pulled out a security pass card and laid it down on the table.
“Taka, you are the best,” Keiko praised as she snatched up the card.
“I know,” Taka beamed.
Half an hour later, the Kanochan slipped quietly out of the rented shuttlebay for the last time and glided quietly into the morning air traffic of Steiermark. When Officer Lenhard led a raid on the bay later that day, all he found was a false name and slate-debit number that led to a fictional address elsewhere in the city and the residue from some unidentified enzyme that had stripped the room clean of every scrap of chromosomal evidence.
The caves in the Nebelhaft foothills had been designated during mission planning as the beta site in case it was necessary to relocate. They had been chosen because of the sparse population in the region, just a few camping areas for the more outdoorsy residents of
Steiermark, and because of their proximity to the hydro-pumping stations that contained access tunnels that ran up into the city. What had not been considered was the fact that, at this time of year, the caves were coated in murky water and algae as the melted winter snows filtered through the final layers of the mountain and into the underground aquifers.
The water and algae made the floor and walls slick as ice and within an hour of landing, everyone’s’ clothes had green streaks of slime on them from slipping and falling. The Senshi were used to going long periods of time with little sleep, but Don Kielter was not, so he found a corner and sat down to rest and watch his slate-screen while he waited for the others to finish unloading the shuttle.
“We’re not paying you to sit around,” Nariko charged as she shuffled by, carrying a crate.
“According to Arduran tradition, you are carrying that crate correctly. There, I’m doing my job,” Don Kielter said, turning up the volume.
“They’re re-airing the original pilot episode of Jorgan VonZeit,” he explained.
“Never heard of it,” Nariko mentioned as she set the crate down on the squishy floor.
“I can’t believe you’ve never heard of this show. It’s one of the most popular shows on the holo-net.”
“Senshi don’t have time to watch stuff like that,” Nariko explained.
“But you seem to have plenty of time to be condescending,” he quipped. “It’s about an ordinary man who finds himself being magically transported from planet to planet, where he works to prevent the imminent disaster that brought him there, before being magically whisked away again.”
Nariko paused long enough to look at the screen for a moment.
“I can see why you like it,” she mentioned as she began unpacking the hammocks from their case.
“But this is just an advertisement for tînăr. You haven’t even looked at the show yet.”
“Don’t need to,” Nariko explained as she began driving a piton into the wall. “It’s obvious why you like it. It reinforces your life-perceptions and it appeals to what you believe about yourself, or what you want to believe about yourself.”
Heart of a Traitor Page 38
