Edge of Conquest (The Restoration Armada Book 1)

by Hugo Huesca

  “I’m here for you, Lotti,” Hirsen said. “No more business. I’m here to tell you a story.”

  “A story? How nice of you,” Lotti said. Her hand slipped to her pocket, and she stabbed at Hirsen in a flash of movement, without a hint of hesitation.

  Hirsen took a single step back, and in the same motion drew Krieger’s pistol and aimed squarely at Lotti’s forehead.

  He pressed the trigger.

  All the surrounding gangers took aim.

  “Wait a fucking second! Nobody moves!” Lotti screamed. Her eyes had widened at seeing the barrel’s end. Her icepick had missed Hirsen’s eye by a notch.

  “That’s right,” Hirsen said, keeping his aim steady, “they shoot, I release the trigger by reflex, your brain becomes ganger pudding. Also, standing in a circle like that, you guys are going to kill yourselves as much as you’ll kill me.”

  “What the fuck, Delagarza,” Nerd said.

  “Sorry, Nerd,” Hirsen said. “Like I said, I’ve a story to tell. Everyone, weapons to the floor. Now.”

  Nobody moved. Hirsen sighed and looked at Lotti.

  “How do I know you won’t shoot the moment they do it?” she asked.

  “I can’t possibly kill them all before someone reaches their gun.”

  “I’ll still be dead.”

  “Smart girl. We’d both die. I plan on walking away from this. No offense, but ganger trash is not worth dying for.”

  “Not cool,” someone said.

  “Shut the fuck up, sweetie,” Lotti told them. “Alright, everyone do as he says.”

  To make sure the gangers behind him actually did so, Hirsen walked a tight circle around Lotti, keeping his gaze aimed at her and his finger firmly planted in the trigger. Her own gaze followed said finger. After he confirmed everyone was unarmed, he set his back behind a wall and lowered his gun.

  “My story begins with a man named Bruno Choffard. Remember him? He had a lovely gig faking IDs for foreigners. Turns out, sixteen years ago, he gave fake IDs to a woman and the little baby she was smuggling into Alwinter. As payment, he received a bunch of credits and papers to a spaceship he eventually sold as scrap. The woman’s new name was Edith Sharpe.”

  Lotti’s carefully controlled expression cracked when she heard that. “What?”

  Hirsen lowered his gun and placed the safety on. She wasn’t going to strike at him now. He had her.

  “Ring any bells? She should. Edith Sharpe. Your first surrogate mother.”

  A deafening silence extended over the warehouse. One ganger burped. Another snickered.

  Hirsen sighed again. These kids lacked flair.

  “What about her,” Lotti said, tough-gal screens back up, but Hirsen could see under the act. She was out of her element. Surprised. If they had been boxing, she’d be against the ropes now. Hirsen kept jabbing.

  “Sharpe’s dead, four months ago, killed by enforcers,” said Hirsen. Same day the construct had almost gotten them both killed. “Sorry.”

  “That what you wanted to tell me?” Lotti laughed, making sure her goons saw how tough she was. “I barely remember her. She was never around. She gave me up when I started trouble.”

  “Not true,” said Hirsen, “she lost you. You were never adopted, you see. Those fake IDs? They weren’t good enough to stand Child Protection Services’ scrutiny. They came knocking. They took you away.”

  Lotti shrugged. To someone with a heart, she’d have looked like a scared child pretending to be uncaring.

  Hirsen knew better. He had studied her, read her profile, seen her in action. Most people hesitated for a second before killing someone. Newgen’s agents were lethal because they lacked that hesitation. It was surgically extracted out of them.

  What surgery and pseudo-zen personality reprogramming had done to Hirsen, life in the streets had done to Lotti. She didn’t hesitate. At all.

  She was putting on an act, true. But it was for him. To make him believe she was vulnerable.

  So he’d leave her an opening.

  He made sure she saw him take off the safety of his gun. He winked at her. I see you.

  “Sharpe spent the rest of her life keeping an eye on you,” he said. “At first, that is. During your orphanage days. She paid off quite a few surrogate families to stand your antics. It worked, for a time. Then, well, you know. They assigned you to that family. It didn’t work out. You dropped off the map. Burned your ID. Joined the gangers. Thrived. Became the Boss. Sharpe never took her gaze away from you. You were alive, she made sure that went on.”

  Lotti laughed at that. “Hot damn, Deli. What a story you’re telling! This gets any more surreal, I may believe I’ve snorted a lollipop and forgot. But you got one thing wrong. Me and my gangers, we’ve been at this alone. No businesswoman to bail us out of trouble.”

  “Is that right? When you got your eye gouged out during that brawl, who paid for the vat-grown replacement?”

  Lotti blinked. Didn’t answer.

  “You thought Alwinter has ganger’ health-care or something?” Hirsen said.

  “I—”

  “When you killed that mobster’s daughter because she burned your lollipop side-business down, why do you think her daddy didn’t come after you? Someone paid a lot of money to the enforcers to make daddy disappear in the middle of the night.”

  “You—”

  “Hey, Nerd,” Hirsen went on, “that tumor you got, remember the free clinic that killed it for you? Guess what, retro-viral injections aren’t free. Sharpe knew you were loyal to Lotti, she decided it was good to keep you around.”

  The list went on. Security paid off to look the other way when Lotti was just starting out, an amateur making too much noise. Ex-boyfriends who changed their minds about getting revenge on the ex. Someone had hired a mercenary squad to take her out once. That squad got paid off, set against their original employers.

  Strange how life worked. These last four months, the most dangerous in Lotti’s life, she’d survived them without Sharpe’s help. She did it all by herself, because in her line of business, if one lived long enough, was smart enough, and mean enough, one may learn a thing or two. Lotti had done more than that. She was a natural born leader.

  And probably on the sociopathy spectrum.

  “Why are you telling me this?” Lotti asked.

  “Wrong question,” said Hirsen. “What you should be asking is this. Why are you worth keeping alive? Ganger trash, no one gives a damn about. What makes you so damn different?”

  “I guess you’re about to tell me, Deli-darling.”

  “Name’s not Deli, and I’m not your darling,” Hirsen said calmly. “I am Daneel Hirsen. Agent, Newgen batch D-77. And you’re not Lotti, ganger. Your real name is Isabella Reiner. Your father, Isaac Reiner, was the last free President of the Systems Alliance before Tal-Kader murdered him and the rest of your family fifty years ago. Tal-Kader’s here to finish the job, Isabella. All those ships duking it out in the sky? Vortex, Hawk, the entire Sentinel fleet? All these people, they’re here because of you.”

  It went as well as he could have expected. Lotti burst out in laughter. The gangers burst out in laughter. Hirsen smiled placidly and looked at his wristband’s watch. Then at the hints of the fake sky through the cracks of the warehouse.

  “Hear that? Boss’s fancy real name’s Isabella! That’s so cute!” a ganger said.

  “What the hell is a Reiner, anyway?”

  “Screw that, what’s a President?”

  “Like a King, I guess, but in space, and with people telling him what to do.”

  Nerd intervened there. “That’s not what a President is. You have to vote for one, and they leave after a couple years without having achieved anything.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  Nerd shrugged.

  “So what, Boss’s is a princess, right?”

  The gangers were having a field day. Hirsen kept on smiling and looking at his watch.

  “No,” said Nerd, “it’s not transf
er—”

  “Yes,” said Lotti. “That’s exactly what I am. My boys, I’m a space princess! Kneel before me!”

  “Hail!” Many gangers knelt, their multi-colored hairs bobbling with the movement, not unlike a group of peacocks.

  Any time now.

  Lotti stopped laughing first. She cleaned a tear in her eye, then turned to face Hirsen. “I never pegged you for a candy user, Delagarza. What did you eat? Ah, don’t bother answer. Tell you what, in exchange for the good story I’m going to give you a five minute head-start.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” said Hirsen. He glanced one last time at his wristband. “It matters what the Edge believes…Scratch that. It matters what the enforcers believe. Open the news, Isabella. Go on. Any channel will do.”

  “Don’t call me that,” said Lotti. Hirsen’s mocking expression made her doubt herself. Laughter died down among the other gangers. She opened a holo and made it big enough so those behind her could see.

  Lotti and Hirsen’s faces floated above a blond reporter. The woman’s lips were pulled stout in an expression of disapproval.

  “—the urgent communication from Alwinter Security Department identified the woman as Lotti, no second name, and the man as Daneel Hirsen, one of the most wanted terrorists across the Systems Alliance. According to Security’s spokesperson, the ganger Lotti claims to be Isaac Reiner’s daughter—despite the obvious age difference—and she also claims that Tal-Kader, our benevolent overseers, are responsible for the tragic accident that destroyed the Monsoon. Obviously, Mark, claims such as these cannot be allowed to prosper. If the less informed members of our community heard these blatant lies, they may lack the context necessary to see them for what they are. Dangerous terrorist propaganda. Something has to be done, and for my part, I hope AlSec shows these terrorists that lies have consequences.”

  “Thank you, Lisa.” The camera moved to Lisa’s male counterpart. “According to our source, investigation is moving along smoothly. We’ll follow the events closely and we’ll bring them to you, dear viewer, as they develop. Stay tuned to Alwinter News for more unbiased reporting; in our next segment, a monkey of Al-Zoo learned to fire a spaceship’s weapon systems, and it’s the cutest—”

  Lotti cut the holo.

  Now laughter had really died in the warehouse. An eerie silence replaced it. Gangers looked at each other, stunned, as if they’d been flash-banged.

  “It can’t be true,” Lotti muttered. “They’re insane, they have to be. I’m not a proper space princess, damn it.”

  Hirsen shrugged. “They believe you are. You saw how they’re playing their hand. They’ll find you, they’ll capture you, they’ll execute you. Lotti, you’ve hidden from law enforcement for years. I know a thing or two about that. Let me say, there’s no way you can hide from the entire Alwinter security forces now that they have your full attention. You know I am saying the truth.”

  He saw her reach the same conclusion. Her survivor instincts kicked in. She glanced around, eyes wide, like a cornered animal. Hirsen knew she was running escape strategies in her head, half-formed plans and tricks, trying to find anything good enough to escape Vortex’s sight.

  She scowled at him, her face constricted in fury. “You did this.”

  Damn right I did. Only way I could make you follow me.

  He raised his hands in surrender. “Think about it, Isabella. It’s my name they’re saying next to yours. Why should I bring those assholes down on my hide, too?”

  “I don’t know, you twisted, prim asshole, but once I figure it out…” she didn’t finish that sentence. “And don’t call me that.”

  “Boss.” Nerd placed a careful hand on her shoulder. “We need to go. Our lookouts say there’s a hell of a lot of security capsules riding the dome’s rails in our direction.”

  “Don’t you understand, Nerd?” Lotti said so suddenly it made Nerd take a step back. “There’s nowhere to go! Where are we supposed to hide? Alwinter’s a single city, what are we going to do, try to survive outside, in Dione’s surface?”

  Nerd stumbled over his words. The rest of the gangers seemed as scared as he was. Hirsen could bet they had never seen Lotti lose control like this.

  It was his chance.

  “You could leave the planet. All of you,” Hirsen said. “I have a spaceship waiting for us. We’ll need to fight our way through, but it’s nothing you bad hombres can’t handle, am I right? The ship will bring us to the EIF force waiting for us in orbit. The EIF believes Lotti’s Isabella Reiner. They’ll treat you like heroes, bring you to the Backwater Worlds, and throw you a parade. You’ll be rich. You’ll be famous. You’ll be alive.”

  That perked some ears. It even caught Lotti’s attention. She bit her lip, passed a hand across the shaved part of her candy-colored hair. She shot a questioning look at Nerd. Nerd looked as bewildered as she did.

  Some day, Hirsen thought, all my lies are going to catch up to me. All the people I’ve cheated and manipulated, all the men and women I’ve talked into walking into their deaths, there will come the day I meet them again.

  “How can we trust you?” Lotti finally said.

  But today’s not that day.

  “Lotti. Doll. You don’t have any other choice,” Hirsen said.

  29

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Clarke

  When Clarke asked for two volunteers among the other destroyers of Task Force Sierra, the four commanders stepped forward. Some did so reluctantly, perhaps to save face among their crew and fellow commanders, but they volunteered anyway. Clarke’s chest puffed with pride. As it turned out, the EIF may have been many things, but they weren’t cowards.

  It took little time to make a program that selected two ships at random, so Clarke wouldn’t have to offend the two remaining ones. The program selected Eagle and Falcon to follow Hawk against Vortex, leaving Dove and Crow to reach Dione and extract Reiner.

  Clarke examined the results and informed the ships’ commanders, Captain Rehman and Commander Mather.

  “Of course,” said Captain Rehman, in the tone another person may have used to complain about the weather. “Let’s get to it, then.”

  “I can’t wait to give Vortex a piece of our mind,” said Commander Mather. “The Defense Fleet has had a good ass-kicking overdue for a while.”

  “Noted, Commander,” Clarke said, flashing her a brief smile. “Wait until Hawk sends you the updated course coordinates.”

  “Eagle will be ready for combat, sir,” Mather said.

  Clarke left that channel and opened one with Dove and Crow. “Good luck, Sierra-2. Remember, you’re headed for minimal military resistance. The rest are civilians. Our people.” So stay your hand.

  He didn’t say anything else. Dove and Crow had experienced commanders who lacked Pascari’s blood thirst. The software had made a good choice.

  Then, to Alicante, Clarke said:

  “Commander, set engagement course to Vortex.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Alicante said. He relayed the appropriate orders to Navigation and then left the channel to receive a full report on Hawk’s weapon systems. Torpedoes, kinetic projectiles, cannons, and turrets, all ready to encourage Erickson away from taking aim against Dione.

  Engines were functional, Alcubierre Drive purred nicely. Hawk traveled at .08 light. Adjusting course to Vortex took three hours, gaining back the lost speed took another one. Eight hours left until Sierra-2 made contact with Dione.

  In the VCD, Vortex and its two destroyers (the three now marked as Vortex-1 in the map) made contact and united in a simple formation, the three of them in a diagonal line to Sierra-1’s approach. The escort ships formed along the edges of the line, with Vortex personal escorts underneath the destroyer’s belly. It was a risky position for escorts to be, which told Clarke that Erickson planned to sacrifice them. For all Clarke knew, maybe those ships were unmanned as well.

  A chill went down his spine when he considered this. The enemy emp
loyed ghosts.

  Good thing that very fast projectiles kill ghosts just as dead as anyone, he thought.

  He had Sierra-1’s formation mirror Vortex-1, but he placed the escorts more conservatively, which allowed him to spread the destroyers farther out than Erickson’s closely knit placement. Clarke hoped the extra distance would give him more time to maneuver and react to enemy decisions.

  Sierra-1 and Vortex-1 were eighteen million kilometers away from each other. At that distance, even light took a minute to get from one end to another. In space combat doctrine, a light minute was considered “stare-down distance,” and combat was imminent. Usually, ships’ commanders used the calm before the storm to exchange pleasantries and demand that the enemy’s surrender.

  “Captain, Vortex is hailing us,” Commander Alicante announced.

  Right on cue. “Patch it through.”

  Captain Erickson’s face materialized in front of Clarke, who made an effort to control the burning hatred the sight of the other captain awoke in him. “Captain Clarke, I presume. You’ve done well since the last time we met. Remember? Free Trader Beowulf. I still have the video of you begging for your terrorist crew’ lives. It was quite touching, the captain of the drowning rats trying to negotiate with the water.”

  “Erickson,” Clarke said, “you should be ashamed of yourself. The uniform you wear used to be reserved for a better person than you are. Tal-Kader’s made a mockery of the Defense Fleet, and you’re the symptom of the Fleet’s disease.” His voice came clear and cold, to such a degree that it surprised him. He felt neither clear nor cold. Clarke would’ve given a hand to have Erickson in front of him so he could strangle the corporate captain with the other.

  It took a minute for his message to reach Vortex, another one for the answer to reach Hawk, plus the extra seconds of Erickson’s response.

  “Tall words coming from someone who left the Fleet in disgrace after running away from combat,” Erickson said. He flicked away a strand of blond hair from his forehead and smiled devilishly. He was the vivid image of a corporate figurehead, yet his uniform was that of a soldier. “Hell, you even ran away from me once already. I doubt this time will be any different.”