Someone coughed behind him. Mach turned round, wincing only slightly, the pain in his hips and back tweaking a damaged nerve.
“Morgan,” Mach said, smiling. “Nice of you to drop by. I wasn’t expecting you for a while yet, considering your new position. Shame what happened to Orloza and Steros. Any luck on finding their killer?”
Morgan stood up straight and pulled his presidential jacket down with a sharp jerk. “It’s currently undergoing investigation,” he said. “But we’ve currently got no leads.”
For the briefest of moments Mach almost believed him. It seemed he had learned the art of the diplomatic bluff after all. It certainly took him long enough. “And what of the marshal?”
“That’s what I’m here for, actually. Listen, Carson, you did amazing out there with limited resources. I tried to give you more, but my hands were tied.” Morgan looked over his shoulder, turned, and closed the door, clicking the lock into place. He joined Mach by the viewport and stared out at the ship. “I need a new marshal. Someone capable. These tartaruns, they’re planning a full-scale invasion.”
“And you know this for sure?” Mach said, although it didn’t exactly come as a shock considering what they had done with the Intrepid.
“Our intelligence officers have been busy over the last few days inspecting the materials gathered from the Atlantis ship and that memory stick you recovered.” He waved his hand at the viewport. “All this was just a trial run. They are a vast people, nomadic and scattered throughout vast regions of space. My reports suggest that they have achieved advanced wormhole technology reverse-engineered from the Atlantis ship. We need to be ready.”
Mach started to feel weak. He stepped over to the bed and sat down. “I’m tired, Morgan. Tired of the CW, tired of rules and regulations. I was better off freelance, working the way I want to. I can’t do the job of marshal—you know that. Think about it logically. Would you really want someone like me in a position like that? I’d be a liability. I take too many risks. I’m not calm and considered. I’d put too many people’s lives in danger.”
“You do yourself a discredit, Mach. You’d be the best damned marshal this Commonwealth would ever see.”
“That’s very kind of you, but flattery isn’t going to change my mind. I’m out, Morgan, for good. I only did this as a favor to you, and because you and your CW buddies screwed me over with an excessive fine.”
“I’m sorry about that, but I did what I thought was best.”
There was something about Morgan’s steel and justification of his decisions that flipped a switch in his brain. He thought of Adira, what she had said to him, the years she had spent locked away because she thought it was for the best.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Mach said. “You took the contract out on me. It was you who hired Adira.”
Morgan tried to smile, brush it away as something ludicrous, impossible, but Mach was too quick; he saw it in the older man’s eyes, the guilt, the shame, the deceit. Given he thought nothing of killing the people who stood in his way, even if it was ultimately the right thing for the CW, it told Mach everything he needed to know.
“Why, Morgan? Just tell me that at least.”
“Damn it, Mach, don’t you think I had valid reasons? You’re my oldest friend, it wasn’t easy for me, why do you think Adira spent so long in solitary?”
“What, you got cold feet?”
“No, I realized I couldn’t imagine the Salus Sphere without you in it, even with all the chaos and trouble that you create behind you. I took the contract because you would have suffered far worse. You don’t realize the enemies you made in the CW. You would have been tortured, beaten, buried alive on some godforsaken rim world. At the time I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t find you.”
“That’s because I was hiding. I was happy out there on my own, minding my own business. I could handle my enemies myself.”
“Not these ones you couldn’t. But see, after I took the contract, I worked hard to reach the people who wanted you dead. I struck a deal with them, paid them off. But Adira… well, you know what she’s like. She refused to cancel the contract, didn’t want to ruin her record or reputation, so I had her locked up.”
“I bet you nearly had an aneurism when you heard I busted her out.”
“Something like that, but listen to me, I did what I thought was best at the time. I was looking out for you, but you don’t make it easy for me.”
“So who were the people who wanted me dead, and what did you do to get them off my trail?”
Morgan lowered his head and his voice. “It was a group of horan spies working out of Fides Gamma. I was using them to filter misinformation to the Axis Combine. You had killed one of their number in some minor skirmish a few years after I had made contact with them.”
Mach laughed and shook his head. “Those horans, eh? Tetchy about that kind of thing, aren’t they?”
“So that’s that,” Morgan said. “You know the truth, about me, about Adira… take the position, Mach. You’re getting too old to go chasing around the stars like some young rebel. It’s time to grow up, do something bigger.”
“Like have the president and vice president assassinated because I can’t get my own way?”
Morgan turned away, hiding the pain of the truth that showed so clearly on his aged face. To Mach, it seemed he had aged far beyond his years. But then, shame and guilt would do that to a man.
“That answer will always be no,” Mach said.
“We’ve wiped your criminal record, and those of your crew. You can start afresh,” Morgan said, but the enthusiasm had left his voice. He knew he couldn’t get his own way this time.
“It’s not enough, President Morgan.”
His old friend took in a deep breath, his shoulders rising before falling again with the resigned exhale. “If that’s the way you want it, then I won’t stand in your way. I’ll have your ship fixed and you’ll be free to go about your business.”
“Wait, how are the others?”
“All fine, recuperating down the hall. Kingsley is working on a new design for his Squid AI. Tulula… well, she’s taken a position within my new tartarun task force and will help liaise with the horan hierarchy now that they’ve back off from the NCZ.”
“She’s a clever one,” Mach said. “Don’t ruin her.”
“I won’t.”
Morgan faced Mach and held out his hand. Mach shook it out of an old respect but said nothing more. There was little else he wanted or needed to say. Morgan held his gaze for a moment before nodding and letting go of his hand. He stepped around the bed and approached the door. He stopped for a brief moment, but when Mach said nothing, he opened it and left, closing it behind him with a soft click.
Mach fell back into his bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to absorb everything they had said and admitted to. He had to give the old man credit; he had worked the system well. He’d never imagined Morgan would have been the type to work horan spies or organize his way to the very top.
But he guessed all those years in a seemingly ceremonial position took its toll. He supposed at some point Morgan snapped and realized he was just dying slowly in an office that no one cared about or respected.
Everyone comes to that turning point in their lives at some point, he thought, considering his turning point so many years ago now. The day he decided to leave the CW and be a freelancer—the most freeing day he had ever experienced.
And he wasn’t going to let the promise of some title take that away from him.
Carson Mach was no one’s marshal.
Carson Mach was his own man, with his own crew.
Lying there, he eventually drifted off, the painkillers and various stims within his system dragging him off to a dreamless void. He had survived the Atlantis ship; he had survived Adira.
The only thing he had to decide now was… what next?
Thank you for reading The Atlantis Ship.
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A.C. Hadfield always wanted to be an astronaut as he grew up reading science fiction novels and dreaming of the stars. He ended up as an engineer but developed a passion for the world of writing. He hopes you get the same enjoyment out of the books as he does writing them.
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Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship Page 25
