by Hugo Huesca
Clarke, come to the conference room at once. It’s about time you know what we’re up against.
“See you later,” Clarke told the contractors, feeling his good humor dissipate. Antonov was right.
It was about time.
The EIF waited for him inside the conference room. Clarke floated in to gazes that ranged from indifference to plain hostility. Clarke glared at each of the three members in turn.
Julia was the first to look away. It was the first time Clarke had seen her since their discussion, and it was clear a month in FTL had done nothing to cool her attitude about him.
Captain Navathe’s gaze shifted from Clarke towards Antonov’s empty seat. The captain and Clarke had never exchanged a word since his arrival at the Beowulf. She was a tough woman, half his size, who carried an air of competence and dignity that only years at the helm of a vessel could give a person.
Stefan Pascari maintained eye contact, his lips pursed in disapproval. His nose had no signs of the damage Clarke had done when he headbutted the man during the EIF’s interrogation. Still, it seemed that Pascari’s grudge hadn’t mellowed with time.
“So,” the man told Clarke, “the prodigal son returns. How nice from you to join us after all this time. How long has it been? A month already, am I right?”
Clarke reached an empty chair with a lazy gesture and pulled himself in. Like everyone aboard the ship, he had magnetic boots, but after years of working in zero g, he preferred to maneuver without gluing his soles to the artificial floor. It was faster, this way. Most sailors eventually abandoned mag-boots altogether, using them solely as a fall-back.
“Sir, where’s Antonov?” Clarke asked Captain Navathe.
“Should be arriving soon,” the woman replied.
Clarke nodded and made himself comfortable. Julia’s gaze flickered between him and Pascari. The EIF’s man scowled and said, raising his voice:
“Are you deaf? I’m talking to you, Clarke.”
“I know,” Clarke replied, his voice silky and terse. “I don’t care.”
“That’s right,” Pascari said, “you prefer to meddle with those sweaty contractors of yours. Are you so afraid of fighting that you’ll hide with the civvies when the time comes?”
“Mister Pascari,” Captain Navathe said, her voice as calm as Clarke’s, “refer to my crew as ‘dirty contractors’ one more time, and you’ll make the rest of the trip outside Beowulf’s hull.”
Pascari, as it turned out, had scowls for everyone. “I answer to Antonov himself, not to you,” he told Navathe.
“Not to you you, sir,” Antonov’s voice admonished. The door opposite the one at Clarke’s side had opened without any noise, and Antonov’s straight figure floated into the room with the grace of a statue in a pool. “Captain Navethe’s in command of this vessel, not me, Pascari. If she decides to throw you out the airlock for insubordination, I’ll help her drag you all the way. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Pascari said. His demeanor changed at once when he saw Antonov. His aggression disappeared, substituted for complacent servitude. “I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”
Clarke and Antonov exchanged a look full of meaning.
What’s his deal? Clarke’s expression asked, making the faintest of nods in direction to Pascari.
Antonov shook his head barely a millimeter in each direction. Not now, he seemed to say.
“So,” Clarke said, “you’ll finally tell us what’s going on?”
“Indeed,” said Antonov. “We’re positive Tal-Kader hasn’t infiltrated Beowulf’s crew, and all the bugs and microphones the customs officer installed have been found and isolated. The ship is secure.”
Meddling with Tal-Kader’s listening devices was a capital crime in and of itself. Then again, it was the least of the EIF’s concerns.
Clarke looked at the walls and ceiling out of habit. Bugs could be everywhere, and even with Antonov’s confidence in his skills, a couple could’ve escaped his sweep.
It won’t be a problem until we reach New Angeles, anyway.
Information, after all, only traveled at light speed. Any listening device on board Beowulf would wait until the ship reached a starport to transmit its data contents.
“Well then,” said Clarke, “let’s hear it. Let me remind you, if I don’t like what I’m hearing, I’ll walk.”
Unless Navathe refuses to give me a lift, or she decides to throw me out of an airlock, he thought.
Captain Navathe turned to him as if she had read his mind. “There’s no need to remind us. I’ll honor Antonov’s word, Mister Clarke, rest assured.”
“Thanks, Captain,” said Antonov. He entered a string of commands into his wristband’s holographic keyboard, connected to the conference room’s network, and created a holographic screen across the table, a video with “CONFIDENTIAL” written over a dark screen.
Clarke gestured at the screen and tugged at the air, which created a tiny, personal version of the video feed.
“What you’re about to hear is confidential,” Antonov said. “Many lives have been spent securing this transmission. Thirty seven cycles ago, a night before Mister Clarke’s interview with us, a courier ship reached Jagal after a non-stop trip from planet Dione.”
That raised some eyebrows across the table, including Clarke’s. Courier ships were the SA’s information haulers across the Edge. They used Alcubierre Drives exclusively to travel between systems, upload and download information, refuel, and set for another trip. Couriers were paid and owned by each star system’s government body, technically the SA, in practice, corporations like Tal-Kader. To use one in a Dione-Jagal path implied a great, wasteful use of oryza. Both planets occupied almost opposite sides of the Edge’s sphere of reach.
“Julia Fillon and her informants intercepted the vessel’s laser as it was sent—” Antonov went on.
“How did the EIF know the laser was there?” asked Clarke. The only way to intercept a laser transmission was to know it would be there beforehand, or get lucky beyond belief.
“I’ll explain in due course. First, please watch the video.”
The “CONFIDENTIAL” sign was replaced by pure black. Then, by the visage of a man with a square jaw and tiny eyes with a cruel glint in them. Judging from his musculature and uniform, the man was an enforcer.
“This is Major Nicholas Strauze,” the enforcer said, “with an urgent message to Tal-Kader command.”
“Fucking enforcers,” Pascari muttered under his breath. Clarke shared the man’s dislike. Few people were friendly to enforcers. The private police force was to the Edge what Internal Affairs was to Jagal Metro City, but public and sanctioned by the SA.
Major Strauze paused for effect, then, he went on:
“Our suspicions were right about the Newgen situation. Unlike other divisions in Tal-Kader arguing the contrary, we have proof that not all of Isaac Reiner’s family was on board the Monsoon during its destruction, and that Newgen helped cover up their survival. Reiner’s wife and daughter used Newgen’s assets to reach the Backwater Systems about two decades ago. We don’t know why they weren’t on the Monsoon, but we’re investigating—”
At that point, Antonov had to pause the video, since the exclamations around the table drowned the sound of Strauze’s report.
“If it’s true, it could mean civil war,” said Julia. The idea seemed to both please her and scare her at the same time.
“Impossible,” Clarke muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “That was over fifty years ago. Why now?”
Reiner’s daughter, Isabella, had been a newborn when the Monsoon’s reactor went critical, but if she had survived, that was fifty years of not saying a word, of not claiming her family’s legacy, of letting the mystery of her father’s death hang over the Edge, a phantom seeding conflict and mistrust across history.
“Please,” Antonov said, “hold your thoughts until the video is over. I know what you’re hearing is surprising, almost unbelievable, but t
he Edge’s survival depends on you keeping an open mind to what you learn today.”
With that, the table calmed down. Antonov resumed the video.
“—possible reasons. Our evidence—attached to this file—comes from Newgen’s last data haven, located in Alwinter City. It was hidden until our data-sifting algorithms came upon it recently. The files show that Isabella Reiner made it onto the planet. Her mother is presumed dead. Regrettably, we lost access to the data before we could figure out Isabella’s location, when a pair of agents infiltrated our HQ and wiped the servers. Given the timing of the attack, there’s reason to believe they knew the information they deleted and were actively involved in its cover-up.”
Agents! Clarke thought. If agents were involved, maybe the Reiners had a chance to escape the enforcers…if the agents didn’t double-cross them first. Given their reputation, neither option would surprise Clarke.
Strauze kept talking. “During their attempt, we captured one agent. She performed a Mahamudra mindwipe to escape interrogation before my operatives could prevent it. Her body was stored for study. The other agent is on the run. The situation isn’t hopeless though. Our search of their base of operations revealed an old, smuggled computer that may contain clues to the Reiners’ location. I’m personally overseeing the cracking of the device. If necessary, the enforcers will use local expertise for the job, while taking the appropriate measures to maintain secrecy.”
“It means they’ll kill the poor fuck that takes the job,” said Julia. It surprised no one at the table. Enforcers cared little for human life.
“Given the situation, the enforcers believe we’re justified in asking the Board to send further enforcer assets to bolster the investigation—”
Antonov cut the feed.
“Whatever Major Strauze’s political aspirations may be,” he said, “he both overplayed his hand and gave us a fighting chance. Strauze thinks of the Reiners’ survival as corporate unfinished business, and he’s treating it as business per usual. Tal-Kader Board, on the other hand, has better oversight. Upon receiving this transmission, they declared an ultraviolet emergency and diverted Defense Fleet Sentinel to Dione, with orders of closing all traffic in-system and to shoot down any ship that tries to leave. From there, the fleet has orders to search the Backwater Systems until they…plug the leak.”
Clarke winced. He held little doubt that if Tal-Kader found the Reiners, they’d spend the rest of their lives—however long that may be—hidden away in some dark and enclosed compartment.
“They won’t get away with it,” Julia said through clenched teeth. “We won’t let them.”
Antonov nodded. “As of now, Free Trader Beowulf is racing the SA fleet. Our best estimates give us a lead of two weeks—”
“Wait, one second,” Clarke demanded. He couldn’t believe his ears. “What are you saying? The EIF plans on finding the Reiners first? If they’ve been in hiding, somehow, for the last fifty years…they could be anywhere in the Edge. Hell, they could be dining with Commodore Terry for all we know. And how do you plan on using a Free Trader vessel against a planetary garrison? Because that’s what you’ll be up against when you try to extract them from enforcer-infested territory. It will be suicide.”
“Sensible questions,” said Antonov. “The EIF knows something the Systems Alliance doesn’t. Isabella Reiner is hiding in Dione, under Strauze’s own nose. We’re extracting her and bringing our forces to bear. We’re going to New Angeles to rendezvous with our deep space force, the Independent fleet, and then the EIF shall break Dione’s garrison and save Isabella Reiner. We won’t allow Tal-Kader to get away with their crime. There shall be justice, Clarke! Brought by our own hands!”
Antonov spoke with the authority of a man that knew he was riding the coattails of history in the making. It was a sight that filled Clarke’s soldier heart with dread. He had seen a man with a burning gaze like that, once before, when Commodore Terry invaded Jagal’s garrison with a message demanding surrender, at the beginning of the Battle of Broken Sky.
“And you,” Antonov told Clarke, “are going to help us.”
9
Chapter Nine
Delagarza
“You pretend to tell me Taiga Town is hiding in the sewage?” Krieger said with a voice so loud it was almost a screech.
“No,” Delagarza told her, “it’s not in the sewage. It’s in the sewers.”
“I’m not going to wade through shit-river for you, Delagarza,” said Cooke. Krieger echoed the sentiment, in less pleasing terms.
“You don’t have to,” he told them both. “Okay? Just follow me. You’ll see.”
Before they had a chance to complain further, he dove down the rusty metal ladder of the hatch. It was difficult to keep a grip with his hands covered in so many layers of clothing, but experience and tenacity prevailed in the end.
He waited at the bottom until both Krieger and Cooke had followed.
The sewers’ tunnels were empty and dry around this zone of the city.
It still stank.
“Reiner have mercy,” Cooke muttered under his breath. He turned his reg-suit hood’s orange light a notch hotter, as if he could burn the shit-particles that floated in the atmosphere.
“Don’t be cry-babies,” Delagarza said.
He led them through a series of tunnels, as dry as the first one, and up maintenance stairs that brought them to maintenance corridors that should have long been foreclosed.
Except the doors had been unbarred at some point in the past, and signs of habitation were visible. The butt of a cigarette here and there, a mostly empty bottle of cheap vodka, a corner that reeked of stale piss, a flea-infested mattress.
Delagarza ignored all of them and kept going. He knew the inhabitants of Alwinter’s sewers wouldn’t bother them. Krieger was clearly armed.
“How can anyone live here?” Cooke asked, after a while.
“The alternative is to freeze to death,” said Delagarza.
“They should freeze,” Krieger said. Delagarza withheld the look of disgust—it would’ve been wasted on her—and focused on Cooke:
“Most of them are addicts. They lost their jobs and their homes, and this is all they have. No money to buy a ticket off the planet. Thanks to Alwinter’s life-support machinery, the tunnels are warmer than the streets, if only by a fraction. When the machinery fails, you can find the sewers strewn with frozen bodies—”
“God, I’m going to be sick,” Cooke said.
Delagarza found what he’d been looking for. A service monorail line, still connected to the power network (thanks to God-knew-how-many-bribes). Guarding a tiny car, barely big enough for the three of them, was a kid dressed in a ragged reg-suit. He regarded them with a frown on his face, which was caked with dirt.
“She’ a cop?” the kid asked.
“None of your—” Krieger started.
“Yeah,” Delagarza said, flashing his best friendly smile. He ignored Cooke’s alarmed gaze and gestured at Krieger to calm down.
“She an enforcer?” the kid asked.
“Nah,” Delagarza said, “just security. She’s on the level.”
The kid spat a yellowish blob on the floor. “What you want here?”
“Access,” said Delagarza. “My name’s Delagarza, I vouch for the cop and my friend.”
“Don’t know any Delagarza, old timer,” the kid said, using Inner Edge’s affectation. There was a dangerous glint in his eye. He barely reached Delagarza’s knee, but the man had little doubt the young kid had some hidden danger close nearby.
“I’m a friend of Nanny Kayoko,” Delagarza said. “She has vouched for me before.”
It was like the kid had been replaced by a different person. He smiled like an angel at Delagarza and the others and gestured at them to take a seat in the trolley. “Should have said so sooner, uncle! To think I almost shot you. Go ahead, sit! Say hello to Nanny for me. Tell her Sunny boy says hi.”
“Will do,” said Delagarza. He tr
ied to see where Sunny boy kept his weapon, but the kid was unarmed.
So there’s a hidden shooter somewhere.
Delagarza shrugged and sat in the trolley. After an instant, Krieger followed, with Cooke behind her. The trolley clanked when electricity flowed through it, and old wheels moved along the rail, gaining speed at every passing second.
“Who is Nanny Kayoko?” asked Krieger, who either was a stone cold badass or hadn’t realized how close they had been to being on the wrong end of a shootout.
“We’ll meet her,” Delagarza said. “She runs a good chunk of Taiga.”
“You said she was a friend of yours,” Cooke said, eyes wide, like seeing Delagarza for the first time.
Delagarza blushed, sensing the implications of Cooke’s expression. “Nothing like that,” he told him. “I’m not a mafioso, Cooke, she’s really just a friend. We met at the line for the bus. I let her go first, and we talked. She invited me for some tea, and we’ve done small business occasionally. She’s a nice old lady, really.”
Cooke shook his head, like he and Delagarza lived in very different worlds and spoke different languages.
The trolley brought them deep into Alwinter’s bowels. Air became colder as they went down, cold enough that their wristbands alerted them not to turn off their reg-suits for any reason, or they’d freeze to death in minutes. The hood’s light on their faces grew so intense that Delagarza’s sunglasses tinted further dark to protect him from blindness.
His battery pack lifetime ticked faster with each passing minute as it adjusted to the extra power expenditure.
“We’re here,” he said, an instant before the trolley began to decelerate. It stopped in a node surrounded by other rails and trolleys from different tunnels which lead to an ample archway formed by Alwinter’s titanium foundations. The very structures that gave the city its structural support formed the dome of Taiga Town.
“Don’t get too excited,” he warned Krieger and Cooke, “atmosphere’s thin here. Oxygen is…um…loaned from the pipelines.”
