The Oncoming Storm

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I will not be attending his . . . party,” she said, making the word a curse. “But I can’t avoid visiting him in person.”

  The XO didn’t disagree. “It’s protocol,” he said. He hesitated, noticeably. “You should take a Marine detachment with you.”

  Kat made a face. The official press releases claimed that violence on the surface was declining, but the instructions for traveling from the spaceport to Gibraltar—the planet’s capital city—suggested otherwise. She would be traveling in an armored convoy, guarded by several platoons of soldiers. It didn’t suggest the planet was even remotely safe.

  “That would probably violate some unwritten rule,” she said. She took a long breath. “Do we have a list of frontrunners for shore leave?”

  “Yes, Captain,” the XO said. He pulled his datapad off his belt, then held it out to her. “I’ve put myself on the list, of course.”

  They shared a smile. It was an old joke. An XO who couldn’t manipulate the system to his own advantage was in the wrong job.

  “Once I return to the ship, I’d like you to go with the first party,” Kat said. “I need your impressions of the planet’s surface too.”

  She paused. “Besides, you need some leave,” she added. “I know you haven’t had any for the last nine months.”

  “I’ve had worse,” the XO said. He hesitated. “Captain, I don’t believe we should risk allowing more than fifty crewmen down to the surface at any one time. If the system comes under attack . . .”

  He allowed his voice to trail off, but it didn’t matter. Kat had already thought of it for herself.

  “See to it,” she ordered. There was one major spaceport on the planet and a handful of minor ones. Getting her crew back to the ship if the system came under attack would be a nightmare. “And make sure we have enough manpower on hand to fight if necessary.”

  The XO saluted, then withdrew, leaving Kat alone with her thoughts.

  Chapter Twelve

  “They’re diverting us to a different approach route,” Midshipman Thomas Morse said. “I’m not sure why.”

  Kat nodded as the shuttle fell through Cadiz’s atmosphere, heading towards the giant spaceport thirty kilometers from Gibraltar. The locals might not have access to many heavy weapons, but the reports suggested that they had obtained some antiaircraft missiles they had fired at a handful of vehicles, including shuttles. Shooting down a helicopter would be annoying, but hardly fatal; shooting down a shuttle carrying a starship commander would be a political nightmare. Even Admiral Morrison’s backers would find it impossible to cover up the disaster.

  She leaned forward as the spaceport came into view, a giant sprawling complex stretching out for miles. That alone was alarming, she knew; the average spaceport was nowhere near so large, even when handling military deployments. The briefing pack had noted that most of the shore leave facilities were within the wire, allowing starship crewmen to stretch their legs and relax without ever actually seeing the planet itself. Dozens of large hangars and military barracks dotted the landscape, while countless helicopters, attack craft, and shuttles sat on the ground, ready to launch at a moment’s notice. It looked very far from peaceful.

  The shuttle came to a halt over the spaceport, then dropped down to the landing pad. Kat had a brief impression of hundreds of soldiers jogging over the base, all carrying weapons slung over their shoulders, then the shuttle hit the ground. The shock surprised her, although she knew it shouldn’t have. A hovering shuttle was terrifyingly vulnerable to more weapons than the expensive antiaircraft missiles that might have been smuggled into the district.

  “The shuttle will be remaining here,” Morse said, consulting the live feed from the spaceport’s control tower. “Do you wish me to remain with it?”

  Kat considered it briefly. She rather doubted she would be back anytime soon, even if the meeting with Admiral Morrison lasted less than an hour. The journey to and from the capital city alone would take quite some time. On the other hand, Morse was a young and inexperienced officer. Allowing him to wander the spaceport on his own might turn into a disaster. But it was his first time on the planet’s surface . . .

  “You may explore the complex,” Kat said, after a moment. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way back to the shuttle. Keep your wristcom with you at all times.”

  She paused. “And don’t drink anything even remotely alcoholic,” she added. “This isn’t shore leave.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Morse said.

  Kat smiled to herself, then scrambled out of the shuttle and onto the tarmac. The heat struck her at once, a wave of warm air that sent sweat crawling down her back. She looked round and saw a handful of soldiers wearing gray urban combat dress heading towards her, led by a corporal. He saluted as he approached, his eyes flickering over her and then meeting her eyes. Professional, Kat noted mentally. That was a relief.

  “Captain Falcone,” the officer said. “I’m Corporal Whisper. I’ve been assigned to escort you to government house.”

  “Thank you, Corporal,” Kat said.

  She allowed him and his men to lead her through the complex towards the vehicle park, where they helped her into a large armored vehicle that seemed a cross between a truck and a tank. The windows were transparent battle steel, she noted, allowing her to see out, but proof against anything short of a nuclear blast. It didn’t bode well for the security situation either, she decided, as the vehicle jerked into life. A handful of smaller vehicles, some of them carrying mounted machine guns, followed them as they headed towards the gates. That definitely didn’t bode well for local security.

  Corporal Whisper seemed to have appointed himself her local guide and pointed out a number of landmarks as they drove through the complex. The swimming pool, the library, the giant strip of shops, bars, and brothels intended to separate spacers from their money . . . and the prison, where irreconcilable insurgents were held, pending their exile to Nightmare. Kat made a mental note to ensure the pirates were handed over for transport, then pushed the thought aside as she saw a long line of locals being searched by military police.

  There was almost no privacy, she realized. The locals had to endure countless humiliations just to enter the complex.

  “They used to smuggle in bombs,” Corporal Whisper explained when she asked about the searches. “Eventually, we insisted that anyone who refused to actually live within the complex had to be searched thoroughly whenever they went in or out of the gates. We found quite a few nasty surprises over the years.”

  Kat shuddered. She’d never liked being searched during security exercises—and the locals had to endure it almost every day. It was just another humiliation piled on top of losing control of their homeworld to outsiders . . . No matter the justification, she couldn’t help thinking the Commonwealth would come to regret annexing Cadiz. But what other choice had there been?

  They passed through the gates and out into the countryside. The road was surprisingly wide, she noted, wide enough to make it difficult for someone to plant IEDs along the roadside without making them instantly noticeable. Defoliants had been used to clear the bushes away from the road, ensuring that it was hard to set up ambushes too. There would be no new growth for years, Kat knew. Just something else for the locals to hold against the occupation force. And the stripped roadway wouldn’t stop a sniper from taking a shot at the convoy as it raced towards the city.

  Still, Cadiz was beautiful, she thought with a trace of wistfulness. She had never been able to climb mountains or even hike before joining the Navy, even when she wasn’t surrounded by bodyguards and interfering tutors. Davidson had taken her mountain climbing once or twice, before their relationship had come to an end. The mountains she could see in the distance looked challenging, just the type of experience he loved. But she doubted they were safe for anyone, unless they were surrounded by armed Marines.

  She sucked in her breath as they entered Gibraltar, after being waved through the gates by armed soldiers. Inside, hundr
eds of cars and motorbikes—some so primitive they were actually fueled by gas rather than power cells—buzzed round, while the locals who were on foot glowered at the passing convoy. Kat frowned when she saw them, realizing just what—or rather who—was missing. There were almost no women. The only women on the streets were little girls or old mothers and grandmothers.

  “Odd,” she said, out loud. “Where are the girls?”

  “They’re normally kept indoors,” Corporal Whisper explained. “It’s quite a conservative culture here, Captain. A young woman’s reputation is the key to finding her a good match. If there are suggestions she . . . compromised herself with a young man, she won’t have a hope of getting married into a reputable family. She might even be kicked out of the house.”

  Kat shook her head in disbelief. “And the young men?”

  “No one cares about their experience,” Corporal Whisper said. “They spend more time at the brothels than working or even taking potshots at us.”

  He smirked. “We have a medical clinic responsible for handling sexually transmitted diseases,” he added. “And do you know how many times it’s been attacked?”

  “No,” Kat said.

  “It hasn’t,” Corporal Whisper informed her. “None of the insurgents have ever gone anywhere near it.”

  Kat started as a bullet pinged off the canopy, followed by a rocket that slammed into the vehicle and shook it, but inflicted no real damage. Their escorts opened fire, sweeping the nearby buildings with bullets, then relaxed as the incoming fire slacked off and died. There was no way to tell if they’d killed the snipers or merely forced them to take cover, but it hardly mattered. They weren’t sticking around for a fight.

  She looked at the buildings and shivered. Half of them were pockmarked with bullet holes and other signs of damage, while the other half looked as though no one had bothered to do any maintenance for years. But she could hardly blame the locals, she realized as they swept past the buildings and across a firebreak. There was no point in repairing buildings that might be shot up again at any moment. She turned to look at Government House as it came into view and sighed again. It looked like a giant fortress, surrounded by solid walls and patrolled by soldiers on the battlements.

  They passed through the gates, revealing a number of short-range guns behind the walls. If someone lobbed mortar shells into the complex, she reasoned, the gunners could track the shells back to their point of origin and return fire. And, if they reacted quickly enough, they might even kill the enemy mortar team before they could escape. But the cost in civilian life had to be quite high.

  The vehicle came to a halt. Corporal Whisper opened the hatch, revealing a grim-faced woman in a tight-fitting uniform that had to have been specially tailored to show off her body to best advantage. Kat felt a flicker of sympathy. It was clear, just from her stance, that the woman didn’t want to wear the uniform, but it had been forced on her. And it was easy to guess just who had decided such a revealing uniform was a good idea.

  “Captain Falcone,” the woman said. “I’m Commander Jeannette Macintyre, the admiral’s aide. Welcome to Cadiz.”

  Kat studied her for a long moment. Commander Macintyre was beautiful, with long red hair and a perfect face, but her stance was all wrong. Someone had insisted she have her body upgraded, Kat decided, although it was impossible to say who. The look on Macintyre’s face also suggested she wasn’t inclined to share any confidences with Kat. She probably assumed the worst of her.

  “Thank you,” Kat said, holding out a hand. “It’s been an interesting tour.”

  Macintyre smiled as she grasped Kat’s hand and shook it, firmly. In the distance, Kat heard the sound of explosions.

  “It isn’t a safe place for anyone,” Macintyre said finally. “The admiral is waiting to see you.”

  Kat followed her through a network of corridors and then a collection of offices that seemed to be crammed with bureaucrats and officers trying to maintain the occupation. She couldn’t help noticing that most of them happened to be young and female—and almost none of them looked local. But that wasn’t a surprise, she told herself. If none of the locals could be trusted, they couldn’t be allowed to work in government. And yet, that would ensure Cadiz would have almost no one versed in running a government when the Commonwealth finally withdrew. They’d fall into chaos almost at once.

  Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, she thought, at least for the workers. They would be taken for collaborators.

  She pushed that thought aside as Macintyre led her into the admiral’s office. Kat had to keep her face under strict control as she glanced round—there was a staggering amount of gilt embedded in the walls, surrounding a number of artwork from Cadiz—and then looked at the admiral, who was standing in front of a holographic display. In person, he was even more striking, but it wasn’t real. He’d definitely not had his looks spliced into his genes before birth. Like Macintyre, there was something subtly wrong about how he moved.

  “Captain Falcone,” he said. He held out a hand. “Welcome to Cadiz.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kat said. She grasped his hand, allowing him to shake hers. His handshake was perfect, too perfect. It was just like the curtseys would-be aristocratic women were expected to drop every time they encountered someone from a high-ranking family. “It’s good to be here.”

  Admiral Morrison studied her for a long moment, his gaze seemingly welcoming . . . but Kat detected an element of cold calculation behind his smile. She forced herself to hold still under his scrutiny, then allowed herself a moment of relief as he finally let go of her hand and motioned her towards a chair. Kat sat down and crossed her legs, then frowned inwardly as the admiral sat on the sofa, facing her. His poise was again perfect, too perfect. It was just like the rest of him.

  “I understand that you have had an eventful trip,” Admiral Morrison said. “A captured pirate ship, no less!”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t sent any report to the admiral, not yet. By tradition, the first report was always supposed to be made in person. But the convoy master might have filed a report of his own . . . or someone might have noticed they were towing a pirate ship with them. There were too many possibilities . . .

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “We took the ship intact, capturing some of its crew and liberating some of its slaves, all of whom are currently held in stasis. I would like to transfer them to the planet’s surface as quickly as possible.”

  The admiral made a dismissive wave with his hand. “You can make arrangements with my aide for the prisoners to be added to the holding pens,” he said. “The former captives can remain in stasis until they can be shipped to Tyre.”

  Kat frowned. “They can’t receive treatment here?”

  “There are better facilities on Tyre,” the admiral said.

  Kat felt her frown deepen. There might well be better facilities on Tyre, but not by much, and certainly not better enough to justify keeping the former captives in stasis until they were transferred to yet another planet. But it was the admiral’s call. If the situation on the ground was as bad as it seemed, the hospitals on the planet’s surface might be overflowing with casualties. Besides, sending them back to Tyre would make it harder for anyone to cover up the pirate attack.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, finally. “We also found some disturbing evidence on the pirate ship.”

  She briefly outlined what they’d discovered—and the conclusions they’d drawn, afterwards. The admiral seemed attentive enough, but she’d enough career experience to tell he wasn’t really interested. She couldn’t tell if he was playing dumb or if he genuinely didn’t care, but either way it was worrying. It was also in line with everything else she’d seen since entering the system.

  “Admiral,” she concluded, “someone is backing the pirates. There is simply no other explanation.”

  “They’re pirates,” Admiral Morrison said with a sneer. “They’re hardly an organized fighting force.”

  “They don’t h
ave to be,” Kat said. “All they have to do is attack and destroy our shipping.”

  She thought, briefly, of her father’s warnings. If freighters continued to be lost to “causes unknown,” insurance rates would start to rise steeply. This would lead to increased shipping costs, which would drive many of the smaller firms out of business and force the larger firms to tighten their belts. It was quite likely, she knew, that the bigger corporations were downplaying the situation purely to avoid an economic downturn. But they couldn’t keep the pretense up indefinitely.

  “The pirates are taking losses too,” Kat added. “They couldn’t operate their starships without a backer, certainly not if they’re blowing up prizes rather than selling them.”

  “There’s no proof,” the admiral said. “I do not believe that accusations of anything would improve relationships between ourselves and the Theocracy.”

  “We have plenty of evidence that something is very wrong,” Kat insisted. “Who else benefits?”

  Admiral Morrison offered a look of nonchalance. “I hope you will attend my party,” he said. “There will be dignitaries from all over the system in attendance.”

  The sudden change in subject left Kat feeling breathless. “Admiral . . .”

  “I believe most of my superdreadnought commanders will attend,” Morrison continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “The CEO of Cadiz Incorporated will also be attending. He was particularly interested in meeting you.”

  “Oh,” Kat said.

  “Indeed,” the admiral agreed. “I think he has a proposal he wishes to put before you.”

  “I have no say in the affairs of Falcone,” Kat said flatly. It was true. Her eldest brother would inherit most of the family stock, leaving her with just her trust fund and a bundle of nonvoting stock. “The discussion would not be productive.”