Ghost War mda-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “And I’d do nothing less.” I finished my beer and set the bottle down. “Thank you. I’m staying at the Grand Germayne. If they don’t have this in the bar, I’ll ask them to order it. I’ll buy when we speak again.”

  “I hope we can reach agreement.” She nodded as I rose. “I’d rather it be your gold than your blood.”

  22

  If you listen to what people say, you will fish rabbits in the ocean and hunt fish in the forest.

  —Bulgarian saying

  Manville, Capital District

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  29 January 3133

  My previous comments about the tradecraft of leaving threads in doors and the like, and the futility of doing that because the others in the craft know to look for such things, came around full circle as I returned to my room in the Grand Germayne. When I’d left my room, instead of trapping a thread between door and jamb, I just left one on the floor close to where it might have fallen were the door opened. The careful sneak subsequently entering my room would notice it and would likely believe that housekeeping or someone else had opened the door, knocking the thread loose. They then had to decide if they would leave it there—which they would if they wanted to get in and get out, since I would blame housekeeping for the intrusion—or replace it.

  The thread had been trapped just below knee height, which is the recommended area, since no one ever looks there. The only reason for putting the thread back was because they wanted me to think things were normal in my room. They wanted to surprise me and, while I was getting used to the idea that I might as well not even have a door on my room, surprises I could do without.

  Being unarmed at the moment, the dodge of pretending to be room service, or a valet, really wasn’t going to work. Instead of opening the door, I backtracked to the lifts and used the house comlink to call my room. I let it ring four times and got no answer. I called again, waited for four rings, and hung up. I did that three more times and finally got an answer.

  It was a female voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Sam. You’ll be a long time waiting for me to join you.”

  My comment met with momentary silence, then she growled. “Gypsy sent me to fetch you.”

  “Gypsy?”

  “You know him. He’s quite handy.”

  I nodded and her voice clicked into place. I’d not recognized it because she was speaking without her jaw wired shut. “Ms. Elle, so glad you escaped Aunt Helen.”

  “We shouldn’t talk over this line.”

  “Fine, meet me in the lobby and we’ll go for a walk.” I hung up the phone, punched the button for a lift to head down, then opted for the stairs. I descended quickly and reached the lobby, but didn’t find her there. This I took as a good sign, as it meant she’d not rushed out to try to find me, which would have been stupid. She’d taken her time, looked around, made sure I wasn’t going to ambush her, then headed out.

  She was easy to recognize with that shock of red hair. It had been cut shorter, darkened a bit and styled nicely. Her clothes, unlike mine, were not dated and she wore them very well. Heads turned, and as she found me and smiled, men young and old glared pure hatred at me. They all wanted me dead so they could console her at my loss.

  “Shall we talk of old times, my dear…?”

  “Elle will do fine. Gypsy was surprised to learn you arrived early.” She steered me out a side entrance of the hotel, and we started walking south through a district that was full of galleries, antique stores, smart little bistros and the ubiquitous Javapulse Generators. “We got your message and were preparing for you to arrive next week.”

  “I know. That’s what I wanted you to think.”

  She nodded. “Gypsy figured that out. He assumed you were still wary about the way things ended with dear Aunt Helen.”

  I patted her hand. “And did he think it was okay for you to let me know you’ve got someone working spaceport security who reported my arrival?”

  A little jolt ran through her, but she covered her reaction with a dazzling smile. She leaned in and whispered in my ear. “We’ll keep that between us, shall we, Sam?” I couldn’t see her expression as she whispered, of course, but the look on the face of a couple walking toward us suggested they would have been grossly surprised by the benign nature of her murmur.

  I faced her, our lips centimeters apart—close enough that I could feel her breath on them. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  We stayed that way for a second or two longer than we probably should have, then she turned away and guided me toward a JPG shop. We ordered and then took our drinks to a small table on the sidewalk. Both of us turned our chairs so our backs were to the building, giving us a full view of the street.

  I noticed nothing of merit, but I kept watching as I spoke. “How did you leave it with Aunt Helen?”

  “Things were very tricky. I was thinking I might never get out of there. You know how she is. I fantasized about shaving my head and disguising myself as a Buddhist Monk, but saffron robes are so not my color. Still I would have done anything to escape and finally I did.”

  Glancing over, I measured her hair with my eye. It was a couple of months’ growth, so it seemed conceivable that she might have made it out that way. “And Gypsy?”

  “I think he wanted to tell you himself. It’s a surprise.”

  “He’s like that, isn’t he?” I sipped my coffee-flavored chocolate beverage. “He’s not worried that I would be holding a grudge, is he? He paid me what is due me. I do understand how the business can run.”

  Elle rested a hand on my arm and gave it a little squeeze. “Ah, but you’re a professional, and so many others are not. Gypsy believed this and that is why he sent for you. He liked your arriving early. He said it showed you had even more intelligence than he’d given you credit for.”

  “Good.” I smiled and groaned inwardly. The last thing you want someone who is into conspiracies and making odd things happen thinking about you is that you’re smart. That makes him think you’re a player and a plotter. The problem was that there was no way to reverse that assessment. The damage had been done and there was really only one way to repair it. Because Gypsy now would believe I was someone he couldn’t trust, I had to make myself into someone he found it vital to trust.

  We chatted about my escape and what I’d been doing as we finished our drinks, and then she hailed a hovercab. We got in and from the first it was apparent to me that the driver was in Gypsy’s employ. Elle gave no directions and I was fairly certain she didn’t know where we were going herself. This meant someone had been watching the JPG and, after we arrived, had brought the hovercab in on standby, with Gypsy telling the driver where we were supposed to go.

  We headed north, but on the west side of the river this time, and to a small office complex with about half the units rented. Suite 301 still looked vacant. The name of the previous firm—a travel agency by the looks of the leftover graphic—had been scraped from the glass, and paper had been taped up over the windows. A sign read, “Coming soon, Basalt Astrology: By us, for where we are now.”

  Gypsy opened the door as we arrived. He’d changed a lot. His hair had grown out and had been colored jet-black. Either he’d gotten a lot of sun, or had spent a lot on a good skin darkener, for he had the healthy glow of someone who spent leisure time on the beach. In fact, had he been the poster child for the previous agency, I doubt it would have gone out of business. His clothing, I noted, was as nondescript as mine.

  “Good to see you again, Sam.”

  “And you, Gypsy.”

  “Please, come in.” He stepped aside from the door and let me through, then Elle followed and locked the door behind us. Gypsy took up the lead again and I trailed him down a corridor and to a conference room large enough to easily allow meetings of groups of eighteen or more booking expensive junkets to Solaris or some other hot spot.

  And Solaris looked about r
ight as a destination that would interest the crew gathered there. Not counting Elle and Gypsy, we were twenty, which was roughly enough people to command a pair of battalions with a couple left over. Men and women, they all looked hard and nasty—all-star survivors from every corner and culture of The Republic. A couple had replacement limbs and one a glowing red eye. I didn’t see any Lament tattoos, but there were a scattering of mercenary designs on shoulders or necks, and more than enough scars to make a cosmetic surgeon drool.

  Gypsy moved to the front of the room as I drew a chair back against the rear wall. “We’re all here now. I apologize for calling this meeting so hastily, but our latest member arrived early and I wanted to get things started. Our situation here is relatively simple. We are here to affect a change in the leadership of this world. Revolution, reformation, conquest, call it what you will; we are the ones tasked with accomplishing it.”

  He smiled confidently as murmurs ran through the group. “You will be the commanders of our lances, companies and battalions. Major Catford will command our first battalion and Mr. Donelly will command the second.”

  This promotion surprised everyone save Gypsy and Elle. I was lucky that by being in the back of the room, I had a second to cover my shock before everyone else turned to look at me. I’d been scanned hard when I walked into the Egg, but the looks I was getting would have hard-boiled me by comparison.

  The two looking the hardest at me were over on the right side of the room. One was Catford, of whom I’d heard. Back when Stone resigned and Damien Redburn had been appointed Exarch in his place, Catford had resigned his commission in a Republic Guards unit. On his native Epsilon Eridani he’d tried to raise a mercenary unit he called the Eridani Warhorses, recalling the glory days of the fabled Eridani Light Horse regiment. His efforts were frustrated when Prefect Sandoval refused to sign a company charter for him.

  Since then I wasn’t certain what the small, slender man had been doing. Had he waited two years he might have been able to follow in Tormark’s footsteps and have a unit naturally rise around him. Since he was present on Basalt, I had to assume he’d fallen on hard times, or had been working as a consultant with those who anticipated the present times arriving in one form or another.

  The other person stood a head taller than him and had her blond hair of a length that covered her shoulders and her neck. She’d probably have tucked it back on the left side to see me better, but I knew her ear had been reduced to a melted nubbin and the twisted mass of scars on her cheek and neck were enough to make even the most battle-hardened vet blanch. A piece of machinery replaced her left eye, and the stainless-steel socket in which it had been set covered her from temple to forehead, along her nose and molded to the top of her cheekbone.

  Isabel Siwek didn’t know me, but I knew her. She’d commanded a small militia unit on Acamar, in Prefecture V. She took her people out and put down a small protest by farmers, and put it down hard. She then burned four farms and a quarter of a small town, all the while claiming the farmers had done it to frame her. Janella had been sent in to oversee an investigation and Siwek refused to come in. Janella had been forced to bring her in and the resulting battle had left Siwek scarred and in a Republic prison.

  How and why she was out, I didn’t know. That had all happened four years ago. I’d known of Janella then, but wasn’t dating her. When we started seeing each other, I did some background research, which is why I knew of Siwek.

  Her reaction to the announcement suggested to me that she’d expected to command the second battalion. Moreover, her being seated near Catford had me thinking the two of them had already been talking together about how to run things. I could applaud their taking initiative, but given his ambition and her flexibility on ethical grounds, I was thinking having them together would not be the way to keep collateral damage to a minimum.

  Gypsy waited for a moment until the tension in the room was just shy of boiling over, then clapped his hands. “Mr. Donelly was instrumental to the successful conclusion of a recent operation, and showed great insight into these things. I am very pleased to have him with us, and I know he will be able to handle his responsibilities without question.”

  About a third of the people were willing to take Gypsy at his word, another third were waiting for me to prove it, and the rest of them wouldn’t have deigned to follow me if I was Morgan Kell leading them in a raid on a nursery school. It could have been worse, as far as the numbers went, but was probably as bad as it could get otherwise. Those who resented my intrusion clearly were wondering who I was. Until they knew, and until Catford and Siwek could be put in their place, I was going to have trouble.

  But, as every good wolfhound knows, you just start taking the pack apart one wolf at a time.

  Our leader smiled. “Our goal is to destabilize the government so as to more easily effect a change. My associate and I have done the basic research on Basalt and have begun to outline a number of operations that will bring us… Yes, Major Catford?”

  Catford rose and pulled the crimson beret from his head. “If you will permit me, Gypsy, I’ve been checking some things out myself, and I think there’s some vulnerabilities here that we can exploit using some proven military strategies. With Captain Siwek and a few other company commanders, I have undertaken the development of operations protocols and plans that, when employed, will destroy the enemy’s ability to strike at us. Once we have done that, effecting a regime change will be a simple matter of seeing to it that the current leadership relinquishes control, voluntarily or involuntarily.

  “Our research has pointed out the triad keeping the current regime in power. The Public Safety Department is a paramilitary group that will be powerless to stop us. They are underequipped and trained for crowd control more than outright combat. The Basalt Militia has a few ’Mechs, and a fair selection of military vehicles, but all are outdated and underpowered. Moreover, their pilots are green and will be no real threat in combat.

  “By far our greatest threat will be the group of mercenaries being gathered by our opposition. We have ascertained the location of their headquarters and are willing to initiate investigations to further track opposition forces. With a series of lightning strikes, we can eliminate this force. We anticipate that collateral civilian damage will be kept to acceptable levels and restricted to marginal underclass populations, so the potential elite backlash will be minimalized.”

  People listened intently, with heads nodding in agreement. Even Gypsy seemed to be open to this description, but not yet fully accepting of it. If this was the overture, I didn’t want to be hearing the rest of the symphony. Catford was composing a bloody lament for Basalt, and goal one for my mission was to close that concert before it ever opened.

  While I had hoped this would come later rather than sooner, circumstances were really directing me to act immediately. I let my chair rock forward and I stood. “If I’m not mistaken, Major, you’re suggesting a direct military assault on a place like the Egg, to destroy the enemy’s cadre of warriors?”

  “That eventuality was covered in our ancillary operations to ensure complete neutralization of the enemy opfor.”

  “Ancillary?” I blinked. “You saw that as an afterthought? And your primary was, what, issuing a challenge to the enemy to go toe-to-toe in the northern flood plain?”

  The sarcasm in my voice never even registered on him. “If you knew anything about ’Mech warfare, Mr. Donelly, or of Basalt, you’d know that the flood plain is hardly the optimal venue for combat.”

  “What I know about, Major Catford, is a lot more than just ’Mech warfare.” I nodded toward Gypsy. “We’re not here to kill ’Mechs and machines. We’re here to kill a government, and I’ve had time and reason to think on that of late.”

  Gypsy smiled. “Would you care to share your insights with us, Sam?”

  I thought for a moment, then nodded. “Sure. It’s the only way to incite a reasonably stable and satisfied populace into wanting their government replaced. I
t will work. I call it Low-Intensity Terrorism. We do it right, and we might never need a ’Mech leaving a hangar.”

  23

  I am as true as truth’s simplicity,

  And simpler than the infancy of truth.

  —Shakespeare

  Manville, Capital District

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  29 January 3133

  I’ll give you the primer on Low-Intensity Terrorism pretty much as I gave it to them, and as you study the events on Basalt, you’ll see the natural evolution of things. The one favor I’ll do you is to leave their comments until the end. Most of the comments offered while I was talking were, funny or not, born of ignorance. The more I talked, the more people thought. It wasn’t until the end that those who had made up their minds before I started, started in on me.

  Traveling between planets takes a long time. Since I wasn’t palling around with other people on the ship, I had a long time to think. What got me started was the effect of the grid’s collapse on folks. It made them uncomfortable, skittish and nervous. Before that happened they’d have described themselves as happy. Twenty-four hours later—or whatever constituted a day on their world—they were antsy.

  Several other things went into the mix. It’s tough to peg when the first act of terrorism occurred. A case could be made for the plagues on Egypt. If we start it there, that’s the only instance where the killing of people has actually succeeded in winning a social cause. Then again, killing one person in every family is a far greater impact than any other terrorist group has ever managed.

  Killing people never does the job, especially in a modern society. All it succeeds in doing is drawing the opposition together. It makes the enemy appear to be homicidally insane. People know inherently that insane killers can’t be trusted and that terrorism is extortion. There is nothing but the terrorists’ good word to bind them to ceasing their activity once their goals are met. Like any blackmailers, they can keep modifying demands indefinitely.