The yacht shook suddenly with a fierce, short jostling, though they had yet to actually be fired upon.
“Shit!” Cassel exclaimed. “They’re trying to get an inducer beam on us!”
“That would not be a desired outcome,” Xenecia said sourly.
“Think I don’t know that?! C’mon, c’mon…” She gave the controls a sharp jerk, then another in the opposite direction and still another back. She was trying to break up the vessel’s profile. It was a fairly low-tech approach to what the chaffs would accomplish, but only if she could avoid a lock until they blew. The yacht seemed to respond, though somewhat more sluggishly than the urgency with which she was pushing it. “Just another second or two. Damnit, move, you bucket!”
An indicator light on the control panel lit bright red. Several kilometers behind them, the chaff packets finally detonated, throwing out a massive three-dimensional screen of fine expanding debris. So confused was the inducer beam coming from OS Tau that Ensign Cassel was able to briefly shunt all residual power into the engines for a microburst of acceleration, just enough to push them out of its path without frying one or even both of the engines. She let out a triumphant whoop as they slipped beyond the effective range of the inducer beam just in the nick of time. Then the gravity of her situation settled in around her once more and she reverted to grim silence.
Moments later, the radio crackled to life.
“Absconders,” the voice on the other end of the transmission said, affecting a keenly level tone. “This is Lieutenant Commander Harlan Garrity, executive officer, Orbital Station Tau. By now you are no doubt aware that you are beyond our effective range of pursuit. Do not take this to mean you are beyond the reach of our justice.” The voice paused to let that statement sink in. Not justice as in an abstract, unbiased precept of law and order. Their justice, as in corporate-sanctioned vengeance perpetrated in cold blood.
The kind they had been prepared to apply to Fenton.
The voice continued. “To the person or persons in control of the Commander’s yacht, I have been authorized to offer one million credits in exchange for the safe return of all Morgenthau-Hale property currently in your possession. This includes both the vehicle itself and the contracted employees within. You will not be harmed. Repeat, you will not be harmed. Please respond if you are willing to accept these terms and arrangements will be made for you to land at once.”
Xenecia’s breath caught in her chest. A million credits. More than five times the bounty she had been promised then denied—more than twelve times what Roon had offered for the job they had essentially just completed! More than any bounty she had ever laid claim to in her career. Her mouth literally watered at the prospect. With a small fortune such as that she could retire early and live out the rest of her days like a queen. That, or vastly expand her operations as a huntrex. Buy a ship of her own, build up her arsenal with exotic contraband, maybe even hire on a few outside contractors. The corner of her mouth curled up with wicked amusement as she toyed with the notion of offering Quint Samuels a job. A very high-risk, low-reward job.
Then she remembered the deception, the manipulation, the detention and humiliation she had been subject to while under contract with Morgenthau-Hale. She had no reason to trust any offer this man made on his, their, or anyone’s behalf! Looking up, she saw that Fenton, Roon, and Ensign Cassel were all staring at her. Each of them brandished the same slack, ashen expression, as if expecting her to effectively sell them out any moment now. There was no hope any of them could even come close to matching the offer on a moment’s notice. They knew it, she knew it, hell, even Garrity knew it.
“Ensign Cassel, open a channel with OS Tau.”
“Fuck,” the young woman whispered. Even if she was able to convince the Morgenthau-Hale Internal Espionage and Subterfuge Division investigators of the forced nature of her role in the unfolding episode, it would only come after a comprehensive and thorough interrogation suite that would include several mandatory and, it was said, extremely unpleasant methods. Even then, she would likely be reduced to the lowest form of scut work for some time before someone decided to trust her with piloting so much as a garbage-burn detail again. “Channel open.”
“OS Tau, this is Xenecia of Shih’ra. Confirm receipt of message.”
“Confirmed. Do we have an understanding, Xenecia of Shih’ra?”
Roon shot her a desperate, beseeching look. “Don’t do this,” she mouthed silently.
“I shall require half up front as a show of good faith. If you can make one secure payment, you can make two.” Xenecia just smiled. It must have looked much more maniacal than she intended, because they all blanched just a little bit more.
Several beats ticked by…
“Done,” came the response from OS Tau. “Prepare to receive account information.”
“Hold one.” Xenecia looked to Ensign Cassel and drew her finger across her throat. In retrospect, it was perhaps a regrettably menacing gesture given the circumstances.
Ensign Cassel cut the wire at her signal. “What are you—” she started.
Xenecia threw up a hand, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Can you access the station’s primary data matrix from here?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can you access it in a way that no one on the station will know about?”
Ensign Cassel blinked, licking her lips and staring down at the control board in front of her. She studied it for several seconds, thumbing through a number of screens and slowly nodding. “I think so. Give me just a second or two… you want OverCom, right?”
“Clever girl. Yes, I want OverCom.”
Ensign Cassel leaned fractionally closer to the controls, her fingers moving with almost balletic precision as she manipulated the signal to do as Xenecia asked.
“Got it!”
“Hello, gang. How can OverCom be of assistance?”
“Is the signal secure?” Xenecia asked first and foremost.
There was a pause as OverCom tested the signal.
“Yes. Ensign Cassel did an exceptional job masking the signal.”
Ensign Cassel seemed almost to blush at the compliment.
“Good. We are about to radio into your main communications array, OverCom. Tap into the transmission, flag and monitor the account that follows for transfer of half a million credits, then transfer it immediately into the following account.” Xenecia rattled off a string of nearly two dozen alphanumeric characters. “Get all that?”
“Loud and clear. Will that be all?”
“That will do, thank you. Put us back in contact with OS Tau.”
“Said and done. In three, two, one…”
“Apologies, Lieutenant Commander. We are now prepared to receive your account information.” Xenecia took a flexpad from the cabin. Instead of accessing the account relayed over the wire, however, she tapped into the account she had given to OverCom. Sure enough, its balance rose by half a million credits within a matter of seconds. She smiled and replaced the flexpad.
“… Transfer of funds complete. Reverse course and return to OS Tau. Once aboard you will surrender any and all Morgenthau-Hale property and indentured employees in your company as agreed upon in the previous exchange. Do this and the remaining funds will be credited to your account and you will be allowed to depart the station peacefully.”
“I think not,” Xenecia said airily. “I have just one question for you, Commander: Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
The wire went silent for several moments, presumably while some luckless junior officer informed Commander Orth that the absconders had just swindled Morgenthau-Hale to the tune of five hundred thousand credits and his personal yacht. When at last the wire picked up again, a new voice oozed out with menacing smoothness. “This is Commander Orth. Let me be perfectly clear, Xenecia of Shih’ra: This will not end well for you. When you are hunted down—and you will be hunted down, of this I have no doubt—I am going to personally eviscerate you and your com
panions and decorate the command module with your still-dripping entrails while you bleed out at my feet. I’m going to pluck your eyeballs from your heads and your tongues from your mouths. I’m going to pull each and every one of your teeth one by one and flay you to the bone. Your families—”
She signaled, much less harshly this time, for Ensign Cassel to cut the wire, then stood and gave her shoulder what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “Get us out of here, Ensign. Fenton, Roon; it is going to be a bit of a haul from here. What say we see if the Commander’s galley has a liquor cache, shall we?”
PART II
13 • FRONT LINES
The mood on Free Planetary Base Oviddia was somber as the deck rats guided Gold Wing’s wounded birds back to their appointed berths within the Nest. The pilots disembarked slowly. Some rushed to embrace and be with friends. Others stalked off to handle the latest round of losses on their own terms. Curses were uttered, words of reassurance exchanged. They were losing the war, and if they didn’t know it before then, they certainly knew it now.
“Hey, Commander!”
Vichante Harm, Flight Commander, Gold Wing, Free Planetary Irregulars, had just finished disembarking. Planting both feet on deck, he turned square into Alexia DeCoud’s balled-up little fist, a blinding cross that fell just short of putting out the lights.
“You promised you’d bring him back!” she shrieked as he lost his footing. “You promised me, you son of a bitch!”
Even before his ass hit the floor a second later, bright silvery motes pinwheeling before his eyes, a chorus of close-by voices was crying out in protest.
“Whoa!”
“Crazy bitch!”
“Like you’re the only one who lost someone!”
“Will somebody get her the hell out of here, already? Them, too—hell, everyone just take three steps back, alright?”
Through the din of voices and his swimming vision, the face of Soroya of Shih’ra clarified itself before his eyes. “Are you alright, Vic?”
“Fine,” Vichante said, his voice muffled behind his hand. He pulled it away from his face, finding only a bit of blood. Still hurt like hell. The girl could throw a pretty solid punch, no doubt about it, even if it was technically a sucker punch.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“I said, I’m fine,” he repeated, a touch more firmly. Alexia didn’t have that good of an arm.
“I understand. Apologies.” She thrust her arm down between them. “How about a hand up, then?”
Vichante started to tense, then thought better of it. He’d lost his best wingman not an hour earlier, and he was worried about being seen taking a hand up? Hell, he didn’t have the strength in his bones to say no at this point, fuck-all what anyone else thought.
“Thanks.” He clasped her hand, doing his part and pushing up with his legs as she helped lift him back onto his feet. Other than a sore ass and a bloodied nose, he wasn’t that much worse for wear, all things considered. “Sorry I got cross with you. All of you,” he said, raising his voice a bit once he’d gathered his bearings. “You, too, Alexia. Hey! Bring her back; it’s alright. She needs to hear this, too. All of you.”
Slowly, their scattered, battle-worn wing shuffled forward at his urging. Some didn’t even bother; they’d obviously lost the fire. After today, he could hardly blame them. He suspected he would see the exploding flower of Dell’s fighter on the backs of his eyelids for a long, long time to come.
“Alexia,” he pleaded, his voice hoarse and strained. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything of his to give to you. It all happened so fast. If it’s any consolation, he never knew what hit him.” He cleared his throat before continuing, addressing the room now. “We know what Dell and the others died for. What they fought to protect. They were proud of their service, proud of what we’re doing here; they had every right to be. We know they would want us to carry on. That’s how we honor their memories. That’s how we mourn their sacrifice.” He looked to Alexia, opening his arms to allow for a sympathetic embrace.
Alexia DeCoud took one look at him, bright blue eyes welling with hateful tears, and reared back quick as an Oviddian cobra.
This time it was no sucker punch.
Vichante winced as the medic threaded the last stitch through his lower lip and he was allowed to speak again. “Fuck,” he spat, grasping his chin and working his jaw cautiously.
The medic dismissed himself.
“So,” Soroya finally said. She’d stood by, waiting implacably while the medic earned his keep. Now that they were alone, they could speak freely. “What really happened out there, Vic?” Her voice was quiet but heavy with the gravity of command.
Vichante heaved out a leaden sigh. Feeling the sting of breath against his swollen, stitched lip, he winced again. “Ambush. One second everything’s fine, the next it’s pandemonium. Lost Dell in the first wave. Poor kid never had a chance. After that, Dancer and Shipley bought it covering our evac. Rest of us barely made it back to the No-Fly Line with our asses intact. Total clusterfuck.”
Soroya considered this thoughtfully. “An ambush. Could it be the Tyroshi were simply in the right place at the right time?”
“Possible,” he conceded. “Doubtful.”
“What else then?” she prompted.
Vichante lifted his gaze, eyeing her levelly from his place on the examination table.
“Ah. Sabotage, is it?”
“You have a better explanation?”
“Indeed. Bad luck.”
Vichante shook his head. She had meant it to sound consoling, but he refused to accept such a simple explanation.
“Do you allow that I know you, Vichante Harm?”
Considering her for a moment, he nodded. “I do.”
“And do you then allow that I know you perhaps even better than you yourself?”
“… I do,” he agreed warily.
“Then hear me out when I say that your desire for an explanation—your need for a problem to attack and solve—is crowding out your ability to see the situation for what it is. You cannot accept that a pilot of Dell’s caliber could be killed by a senseless ambush, that he did not perish in a blaze of glory, because you cannot root out bad luck at the source. You cannot mount a loyalty campaign against it, or flush it out the nearest airlock the way you can a saboteur, spy, or traitor. You can only hope against it, and then only by degrees upon degrees, because you simply have no other option but to accept it as the threshold upon which even the most optimistically conceived and operationally sound mission plan succeeds or fails.” As she spoke she crossed the room little by little, until finally she stood nearly nose to nose with him before the examination table. She took his hands within her own and met him with a keenly level gaze. “I do hope some of that got through to you…” she said in a suddenly much softer, more intimate tone. She lifted a hand to corral an errant twist of matted, sweaty hair back into place.
“It did,” he confirmed, matching her tone. “You’re probably right.”
She dropped that hand around the nape of his neck and drew him in for a kiss. In light of his recently stitched lip, he returned it cautiously but with no less passion for it. Suddenly he felt the coldness of blood and death and battle sloughing off him like sheets of ice from the berg. He was warming to her touch, his lips parting just so to welcome a still-closer exchange, when a familiar pounding sound reverberated from the hall outside.
They had already put a respectable distance between them when the runner skidded to a halt within the doorway. “Madam Commandant,” he said, saluting smartly. “Message coming in for you in the communications suite.”
“Very well. No need to keep me waiting.”
The runner nodded. “They were still trying to decrypt it when they sent me to fetch you, but Nafis said it looked, quote, ‘a hell of a lot like it’s coming from a Morgenthau-Hale CCV.’”
Soroya canted her head just so. “A courier command vessel? Interesting.”
“Yes,
ma’am. Something about a unique signature in the transmission source code. Evidently it’s designed to assist rescue teams locate the senior staff first in the event of a ship or station-wide evacuation.”
“What the hell is a Morgenthau-Hale CCV doing way out here?” Vichante wondered incredulously. “They’ve got no dog in this fight.”
“I am sure it is a simple misunderstanding,” Soroya said. She was always cool, always collected, his Soroya of Shih’ra. Some, he knew, thought her chilly and removed; indeed, he had once been of the same mind. He knew better now. She was as passionate and devoted to the cause as any of them. It was what had drawn them together so many years earlier. Her phlegmatic idealism precisely tempered his quixotic devotion. If not for her influence, Vichante didn’t want to think where he might be right now. Probably dead, if he was being honest with himself.
“What now?” he asked after she signaled for the runner to wait outside.
She stepped in close once more, letting the tension build before she said, “I should look into this. Go get cleaned up. I will meet you as soon as I have a better handle on this.” She paused, considering. “Whatever this is.” He nodded and she moved to meet the messenger. “Lead the way, Corporal Groat.”
Per her advice, he headed straight for their shared quarters. Specifically, the shower. The water felt good, beading and curling and careening off his various parts and limbs. It was hot, almost unbearably so. Just what he needed. He shaved next. Then he washed and lathered up again, going against the grain that second time, completing the ritual. A few nicks cropped up here and there, but he looked more or less refreshed, even if he didn’t quite feel it.
The shower and shave gave him ample time to consider his place with the Free Planetary Irregulars. He could remember back when the movement had mattered, when it had achieved measurable results. Sure, only a few of the literally dozens of campaigns he’d participated in on some level had come to fruition; that is, convincing the Tyroshi or the various other Sovereign Corporate States that whatever system they had designs on wasn’t worth the resources necessary to capture it. It was a simple formula, based upon simple principles of guerrilla warfare dating back centuries, if not millennia.
The Lazarus Particle Page 9
