Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “No, no, we are expecting the DeepSky Fleet,” Liang was saying to the CNS woman as he came to rest on the Vidal side of the bridge. “What I’m saying to you is that this planet is heavily defended. We have nothing to fear.”

  “But Mister President,” she protested in a whisky-rough voice and a dull tone which hinted at a massive headache, “Velcastra doesn’t have a defense fleet. We don’t even have a militia, like Omaru.” She was twice Chandra Liang’s age, with pale hair into which blue and gold streaks had been sprayed in honor of the occasion. They were the Daku colors, and they were flying everywhere today.

  “Miss Halliday, I assure you, Velcastra doesn’t need a militia. The details of our defenses are still classified, but my government would not commit this world to any declaration of sovereignty until we were not merely defended, but impregnable.”

  “And by classified,” she said with wry humor, “you mean that I won’t be able to coax a comment from you this morning?”

  “I do indeed,” he affirmed.

  “So, Mister President, are you able to estimate when we can expect to see the DeepSky Fleet in this system? When we can expect to see fighting in Velcastran space?”

  His lips compressed for a moment, an expression of deliberation, not annoyance. “Soon,” he said carefully, refusing to be drawn. “And I’m going to repeat what I said a moment ago. The people of this system have nothing to fear. This government has acted, and will continue to act, with their interests in mind.”

  “Luck is on our side?” Halliday hazarded.

  At last Chandra Liang smiled broadly. “Miss Halliday, luck is the least of it, and when the action is over, it will be my great pleasure to sit down with CNS and CityNet, and answer every question. For the moment, you’ll have to excuse me. Good day.”

  She took the hint and recalled the viddrone as he passed on with the First Lady and bodyguards. She was still talking, laying a voice track while the drone captured wide shots, as Marin offered his hand. He heard a thread of the story, and smiled. “—takes the hand of Colonel Curtis Marin,” Halliday was saying, “and Colonel Neil Travers, who are consultants affiliated with President Liang’s private retinue.”

  Marin gave his attention to Liang instead, as Sonja excused herself and went on ahead to join the breakfast party. “Curtis, how good to see you here,” Liang said with genuine warmth.

  “We weren’t expecting to stay.” Travers gestured at the path leading to the private hangars. “We volunteered for shuttle duty, brought down Alexis and Mick, were invited for dinner ...”

  “And got caught up in the party,” Marin added. “The champagne was flowing rather freely, and here we are.” He frowned over Travers’s shoulder at the journalist. “Are you worried about public reaction to the declaration, or the fact people know damn’ well, Fleet will be here?”

  But Liang’s head shook. “Two generations of Velcastrans have done conscripted service. Most of this population has military training. They’ve been watching the fight on Omaru, and a lot of them have been wanting to give Fleet a run for its money here. Over five thousand Velcastrans have gone to Omaru, under the blockade, to fight. There’s almost a feeling of jingoism on the street this morning, and a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they never get a chance to load up the old service rifle and take a crack at a company of Fleet marines.”

  “Ouch,” Travers muttered. “On the Intrepid, it was the duty that disgusted us the most. We’d watch CNS like the rest of the colonies, and we knew it would come to this, when the day arrived – we’d be assigned to the streets in cities like Elstrom.”

  “Fortunately,” Chandra Liang said, turning his face to the sun which was filtered by the high branches of the citrus trees, “it won’t be happening quite like that.” He looked from Travers to Marin and back. “Captain van Donne’s crew have been, as they put it, wrangling mines, for the last week. The devices are in position, cloaked, dormant, waiting for the activation signals. Fleet ships can approach Velcastra from four vectors, the major shipping roads, and we have each one covered.”

  A pulse quickened in Marin’s temple. “The journalist asked a good question, and I know you didn’t want to answer it. But … when?”

  “Walk with me.” Liang angled a pointed glance at the viddrone. They were notorious for having extremely long-range audio pickup. He turned his back on it deliberately and dropped his voice. “A courier came in fast overnight from Beacon 884. The Chicago battle group dropped out there a day ago. They can be here … anytime. This morning.” His eyes were dark, grave. “We’re ready. There’s no more to be done. The Chicago will receive our transmissions very soon, if they haven’t already. They’ll know we declared sovereignty twelve hours ago. They’re coming, and if Richard wants to pull the Wastrel right out of the system, or park her in the outer worlds, where she’ll be hidden, he’d do so with my blessing.”

  “I don’t think it’s your blessing, or even your approbation, he’d be looking for,” Marin observed. “Richard obeys no rules but his own – as Harrison Shapiro discovered.”

  They were climbing up from the stream, along a path which wound between thickets of hydrangeas and rhododendrons. Songbirds flitted overhead, and the sun cast rainbow refractions in the armorglass. Just below the top of the slope, they took the pine steps up to the balcony where the breakfast table was being restocked by a bevy of drones.

  On the house side, with a view out over StarCity, Charles Vidal’s hoverchair was parked and his nurse was pouring tea. At the other end of the table sat Mick and Alexis, Trick and Ying, and Madame Deuel. Only Mick was clear headed this morning. As Marin drew near enough to get a close look at the First Lady, he saw black contact lenses, thick makeup, and she had taken a mug of coffee in one hand, a beaker of seltzer in the other. The CNS camera was off her and she had dropped the pretence.

  “You look like you’ve been embalmed,” Mick was saying rudely.

  She gave him what she probably hoped was a glare. “How often do you get to be called the First Lady of Velcastra?”

  “I’ve never had the pleasure of being called the First Lady of anything,” Mick said with some amusement.

  “Michael, a little propriety!” Rusch remonstrated.

  “He’s right, I’ve been embalmed,” Sonja groaned. “Charles, was I absolutely plastered?”

  “To the wall,” Rusch intoned.

  “Dancing on a table with a scarlet macaw on your head,” Charles Vidal informed her.

  She blanched visible. “I didn’t! Did I?”

  “No, you didn’t,” Rusch admitted, though she shared Charles’s ribald amusement. “But if I hadn’t stopped you, you might have. Seriously, Sonj, you ought to lie down.”

  “Later.” She turned toward Liang, and he took the red-taloned hand she offered. “We’re supposed to be moving into the Governor’s residence, but the walls are dark green and the floor is teak. It looks like a mortuary. I’m not moving in there until it’s been overhauled.”

  Chandra Liang kissed the top of her head on the way to the coffee pot. “You’re in charge, Sonja. Daku colors would be nice.”

  “Not on the floors and walls,” she said sharply, and winced.

  The humor was welcome, but from the expressions on the faces of Mick Vidal and Rusch herself, they knew the status of the Chicago battle group. Marin slid into the chair beside Vidal and dropped his voice confidentially, since the old man was not far away. “Have you heard from van Donne?”

  Rusch leaned closer, both hands around an empty cup. “Captain van Donne is confident of the weapon. Almost four hundred surveillance drones have been seeded into the entry lanes into this system. Fleet can’t get in undetected, and we’re just far enough from Hellgate for them not to be able to use it as a sensor blind, as the blockade runners do at Omaru.”

  “Tell me about it,” Vidal growled as Travers pulled a spare chair up beside him and investigated the croissants, hot rolls and muffins. “Sergei is a sonofabitch, but he knows what
he’s doing. The Mako is parked way out, close to the Weimann exclusion zone, and if the drones don’t bring the mines online as soon as they see Fleet coming in, he will.”

  Now, Marin thought, it was a waiting game. He poured green tea as Travers broke up a croissant and asked, “The Wastrel?”

  “Richard pulled her out to Meredith,” Rusch said quietly.

  It was the system’s fifth planet, a safe distance from Velcastra, especially at this time, when its orbit took it at right angles from the yellow G2 star. Marin had watched the navtank on the way in, and again when they brought down the Capricorn, and as a matter of course had noted the positions of the inner planets and satellites. If the Wastrel was out by Meredith, Fleet might have her on long-range scans, but they would see only a big industrial vessel working the shipyards and minefields.

  “Now, we wait,” Mick said softly, tiredly.

  “You need to rest,” Travers told him.

  “I need to walk, get the blood moving,” Mick argued. He turned aside to his father, laid one thin hand on the old man’s arm. “I’m going to take a turn around the park for exercise. Will you come along?”

  But Charles gestured at the breakfast set out before him, the handy displaying CNS, the day’s correspondence, business, his medications and his nurse. The young man had Kuchini stature and red hair in a service buzz cut which told Marin he had been a field medic, like Bill Grant, until very recently. “Go ahead, Michael,” Charles invited. “I’ve more than enough to do here.”

  The chair scraped back and Vidal stood with care while Rusch frowned at him, not quite reproachful. “Don’t go alone,” she warned.

  “I won’t. Neil?” Vidal invited.

  Collecting a cup and fresh croissant, Travers followed him to his feet. Marin hesitated, wondering if he would be welcome, until Travers beckoned with a nod. “I shouldn’t think we’ll be gone long,” Curtis said to Rusch and Liang. “If you need us, send a drone.”

  The sky was always clear on StarCity. Cloud base was far below, and the sun was never less than brilliant, arcing and haloed by disks of lens flare in the armorglass dome. The park ran right through the middle of the platform, flanked on all sides by the mansions and apartment towers, spires that glittered silver and gold in the morning sun. The breeze from the wind generators was always constant, and the water cannons were firing the day’s shower over the creek. The weather was artificial, but the trees, birds and squirrels seemed not to mind.

  Groaning in unspeakable pleasure, Vidal paused at the end of the terrace and turned his face to the sun. “It’s been so long.”

  And there would have been times, Marin thought, when he believed he would never feel the sun, or breathe fresh air, or see a bird, ever again. He described the transspace lagoon as dead black, featureless, starless, a freefall void where gravity and time were almost nonexistent, where instruments barely functioned, and a man was aware only of cold, dark, hunger, weariness, dread. Perhaps the unanswerable dread that if a man died in there, his spirit would never find its way out. He had never said it, but Marin was reminded of the common superstition. When a Freespacer died in space, his remains were taken home for inhumation.

  From the end of the terrace, they took the path across another bridge and into the park. The area was only the size of a football field, but it had been cunningly designed to seem much larger, with paths winding around and across, hillocks and thickets of bamboo, ash and spruce, which made it impossible to gauge distance. Liang’s house overlooked the pond and the summerhouse – Marin remembered the view, from the brief time he had spent there, preparing for his last Dendra Shemiji assignment.

  It seemed a lifetime ago. He and Travers walked these paths now as senior officers, recognized on sight by CNS, and welcome as guests in the houses of Velcastra’s First Families. Charles Vidal had never met them before he shook their hands the night before, accepted them as his son’s colleagues, and offered them his hospitality. He would never know Neil Travers as a crewdeck sergeant, and if Chandra Liang recalled the days when he had hired Neil as an itinerant security technician to install a surveillance system, he never mentioned them, nor judged Travers by them.

  Vidal’s pace was better, Marin thought, and his stride was longer, but he walked with his head down and his shoulders hunched, which betrayed the effort. He kept up the pace and stride for a hundred meters, and then swung off the path when he saw a bench, and was content to sit. Travers had finished the coffee and croissant, and left the cup on a bird table, where a drone would collect it, return it to the terrace.

  “You okay, Mick?” he asked as Marin frowned over Vidal.

  “No,” Vidal admitted. “I’m pathetic.”

  “Recovering, rehabilitating,” Marin argued.

  “Weak, fragile, feeble.” Vidal looked away. “Sterile.”

  “We all are,” Travers said dismissively. “Curtis has been sterile since the Argos. They made me sterile after the UOH job. If you want kids, they start life in a test tube and Fleet picks up the tab. That was the deal.”

  For a moment Vidal blinked at him, as if Travers’s words were not making any real sense. His voice was a hoarse murmur. “I’m impotent as well, Neil.”

  “For godsakes, let yourself recover,” Travers began.

  “Had the tests. Bill did them.” Vidal might not have heard him. “I’m busted up.” He took a long breath, and turned his face back to the sun. “There’s so much wrong, nothing’s working like it should.”

  Marin and Travers shared a look, over his bowed head, and Marin said softly, “It happened to me. I was about as much use as a eunuch for six months. It all came back.”

  But Vidal’s dark head was shaking. “I asked Bill, he showed me the scans. I’m seriously busted up, Curtis. Full of glands that don’t work, scar tissue everywhere.”

  “Damn,” Travers whispered. “Have you asked about nano therapy?”

  For a moment Vidal seemed to hesitate. “When we get back.”

  “To the Wastrel?” Marin wondered.

  “From transspace.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Hellgate, and beyond. “I can get enough nano support to keep me functional, but it’s going to be cloned glands, even if the kidneys and liver come good, which Bill says they might not.” He gave Travers a haunted look and mocked only himself with a bitter chuckle. “So don’t be insulted if I seem a lot less … interested.”

  “I won’t. Damnit, Mick.” Travers touched his face, but Vidal would not look up, and Neil dragged him into an embrace instead.

  Painful memories dogged Marin as he watched Neil handle him as if he were made of glass and likely to shatter. He remembered all too well the months of sickness, exhaustion, impotence. He dropped a hand on Vidal’s back, stroked him there and felt the ribs, the shoulder blades. At last Vidal pushed them both away and forced his feet under him.

  “I ought to be ashamed of myself,” he said harshly.

  “For what?” Travers followed him up, and slid an arm around Marin.

  “Self-bloody-pity,” Vidal said acidly. “I’ve been a lot of things in my time, but I’ve never been a whining little sook.”

  “Did I say a word?” Travers remonstrated.

  “You didn’t have to.” Vidal shook himself hard and dragged both hands over the angles of his face, where the Delta Dragons unit tattoo might have been a scar. “I just wanted to tell you, so you’d know why.”

  So Travers would know why the sparks that had always flown between them had stopped, and why Mick would walk away, hit the mattress alone and curl up with a book and a mug of hot chocolate, because even a shot of booze would put him right back in the Infirmary.

  “Let it be,” Curtis advised. “You can get as angry as you like, beat yourself up all you want, and it’ll still take as long as it takes. Me? I was a wraith haunting Fleet Borushek. I used to go see a Companion, just to touch something living, feeling. He was as good as they get, and he couldn’t coax a twitch out of me for months. Then one day it came back.”


  Vidal peered owlishly at him. “Bill tells me the same.”

  “Believe him. Stop fighting him.” Travers tipped his head back as a shape flitted overhead.

  It might have been a bird, but when Marin followed the line of his eyes he saw a drone, headed directly toward them. The half-meter, silver metal teardrop hovered a short distance away and a smooth synthetic voice said, without accent or gender, “President Liang’s compliments. Would Colonels Vidal, Marin and Travers return to the terrace at once?”

  “Tell him we’re on our way.” Marin slid out from the curve of Travers’s arm and gave Mick a thoughtful look. “Does your father know?”

  “No.” Vidal dragged his shoulders back into line. “Alexis does, but I’ve warned her, she tells him and I’ll break her legs. Bill reports to Shapiro and Richard, and Jo and Ernst know, because they were there when the scans were done. But you’re the only other ones I’ve told, and I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourselves. I don’t want it getting back to my old man via the rumor mill.”

  “Fair enough.” Travers fell into step between them and let Vidal set the pace as they turned back down the path to the bridge. “Now, why would Chandra Liang be sending for us?”

  The breakfast party was breaking up. Trick, Ying and Madame Deuel were gone, and Charles’s nurse had returned to the house, though Charles himself had remained at the table with Rusch and Liang. All three wore grave faces, and Marin feared the worst as they climbed back to the deck. It was Rusch who greeted them with a handy, which Vidal took from her. Marin twisted his neck to see the screen, and recognized a queued message with priority flags.

  The time stamps were fours hours earlier. The source tags had been removed, but it was flagged for Chandra Liang, and two faces were frozen in the display. Marin did not know them, but Vidal did, and he whispered a soft curse.

  “Bronhill and Sung,” he said tersely, “messaging the President direct?” He lifted a brow at Rusch, obviously looking for answers.