Rath's Deception (The Janus Group Book 1)

by Piers Platt

  He must have eye implants, too.

  He crashed into the guard, his momentum taking both of them through the broken viewing window. The guard grunted at the collision, and Rath grabbed the guard’s pistol hand, locking both of his hands around the man’s wrist, keeping the weapon pointed away from him. Their momentum caused them to tumble rapidly, spinning amidst the free-floating glass shards from the viewing window. Rath had hoped that the sudden exposure to zero gravity inside the Suspension Levels would unnerve the guard, but the man must have had some training in zero-gravity combat. Instead of attempting a weak and clumsy punch, he grabbed Rath by the throat, trying to choke him. Rath let him do so – the choke was painful, but would not cut off blood flow to his head. Instead, he focused on the man’s pistol hand, slowly twisting his arm until he felt something pop in the man’s wrist. The guard bellowed in pain, and Rath took the pistol from his limp grasp. He put both feet on the man’s chest, waited until his feet were pointed at the windows at the top of the Suspension Tiers, and then pushed off, hard. The guard tumbled away toward the windows, and Rath flew in the opposite direction, down toward the suspension pods below.

  He had mistimed his push-off slightly, and ended up slamming into one of the pods in the second tier from the top. Rath grasped at the pod as he slid across the glass window, getting a brief glimpse of a young woman sleeping peacefully within. Finally his hand caught on the latch mechanism, and he was able to bring himself to a stop, floating with one hand on the pod. Breathe. Take stock, and then get on with it.

  He realized there was an alarm klaxon ringing persistently, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Rath checked the pistol first – it was loaded, so he tucked it into his waistband. Next he opened the Forge and started the build sequence he had pre-loaded on it, along with a six-minute timer in his heads-up display. He was on Tier 11, six tiers above where he needed to be. He pulled himself hand over hand to the bottom of the pod, pointed himself down toward the base of the central column and the lower tiers, then pushed off gently, scanning the levels below for signs of security teams. As he fell, he triggered his facial reconfiguring program, sloughing off the old man’s face and loading up a decent facsimile of Suspensys’ Chief of Medicine, whose face Rath had practiced copying from press release photos he found online. Rath counted levels as he went, and as he passed Tier 8 he spun to look above and behind him, but all he could see was the first security guard, who had caromed off the large windows at the top of the room and hadn’t managed to regain control of his flight. In his dark security uniform, Rath could barely see him against the backdrop of stars through the windows beyond.

  On Tier 6, Rath saw two technicians hurriedly pulling themselves out an exit hatch, but he ignored them, pushing off one last row of pods before tucking his feet back under him and coming to a smooth landing on the level below. He was standing on the glass cover to Pod 50, so he pushed off to his right, following the numbers a third of the way around the central column until he reached Pod 32. He took a quick glance inside, confirmed that Delacourt was still in there, and then pulled himself down to the bottom of the pod. He clipped his Forge to the bottom of the pod, and then began decoupling the life support hoses that connected the pod to the central column.

  Four minutes.

  Rath dialed up his audio sensors while he worked – the security team would be preparing their assault any second.

  And unlike me, they’ll be in full body armor, carrying auto-rifles and stun grenades.

  With the hoses detached, Rath started in on the mounting locks. Four of them held the pod in place – one at each corner of the pod. The locks were normally opened electronically when technicians had to move the pods off the levels for maintenance or medical checks, but Rath had researched their design and found that they also had a mechanical override. He was moving on to the second lock when he heard the tell-tale whine of a drone.

  It came from the bottom of the central column, otherwise Rath might not have turned in time to see it. He kept one hand on the pistol in his belt, just in case, and straightened up, facing it. The drone came to an abrupt halt four feet away, a menacing weapon cluster extended from its belly. Then it scanned his face. Rath held his breath, hoping the clear plastic face mask that he still wore wouldn’t interfere with the drone’s recognition program. After a moment, the drone moved on, spiraling around the rest of the level before continuing up to the sixth tier. Rath saw two more drones moving through the suspension levels, but he ignored them and went back to the mounting locks.

  It took him another forty-five seconds to release the remaining locks. When the pod was floating free, he tucked his feet into anchor straps on the floor of the tier, and carefully tugged the pod up out of the mounts. It was much more massive than he had anticipated – he could barely move it at first, but eventually he had it hovering a few feet above the floor. He reached for the Forge when the first burst of gunfire tore through the air, bullets rattling off the pod around him.

  His heads-up display reported:

  “No shit,” Rath told it. He didn’t know where the guard team was, or how they had managed to enter the Suspension Levels without him hearing them, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He grabbed the Forge and ducked under the pod, slipping into the cavity below it and easing the pod down over him as cover. The pain was washing through his shoulder in waves, but his hemobots would keep bleeding to a minimum, so he ignored the wound. Rath drew the pistol, twisting awkwardly in the tight space, and gasping involuntarily as the free-floating pod above him bumped against his wounded shoulder. He checked his heads-up timer. One minute left … and then I have to attach it.

  The device was nearly complete, he could see – just the mounting system was yet to be built.

  The bullet had entered his shoulder from the front, which meant whoever had fired it was somewhere to Rath’s right, and likely a level or two above him. He shifted his position on the pod and slid it slowly up again, pushing the pistol out through the gap and firing several rounds blindly.

  That should limit their movement. I hope.

  Several guards returned fire, and Rath heard the rounds impacting the top of the pod.

  Still firing from the same direction.

  That was good news, but Rath felt sure that part of the team was maneuvering to a different position, trying to flank him. He switched hands and fired twice more around the other edge of the pod.

  “Drop your weapon,” the voice came from the facility’s PA system. “There’s no way off this facility aside from the main docking bay. You’re trapped.”

  Rath ignored the announcement, watching as the final seconds counted down off his timer.

  Done.

  He grabbed the device out of the Forge’s tray, slipped the backpack on, and then shimmied his way down to the bottom of the pod.

  I’m going to have to attach it blind – I can’t go out there to do it under fire.

  He slid the device around the bottom of the pod, and fumbled for a second as his hand searched for the mounting locks. More rifle rounds clattered off the metal skin of the pod, sparking as they ricocheted off other pods. Then suddenly, Rath found the locks, and the device slotted into place with a satisfying metal click. Rath pulled a karabiner from his pocket, clipping it first to his belt and then to a bracket on the side of the pod, and then braced both feet against the floor and pushed the pod upwards, groaning at the strain.

  The pod rose slowly from the floor, with Rath firmly clipped to the side. He had hoped to push off harder, but the pod’s great bulk meant that it was drifting at a glacial pace, inches at a time, out toward the central column. Rath knew he would soon be completely exposed to the security team. He glanced quickly up, sighting along the length of the pod, looking for the viewports out into space, far away at the top of the room. But all he could see was metal ceiling. Rath cursed and threw the pistol away.

  “I give up,” he called. “Don’t s
hoot.” His voice was muffled under the respirator’s mask.

  He saw two guards emerge from cover behind pods off to his right, their rifles trained on him.

  “Move away from the pod,” one ordered.

  To his left, four more guards were scattered behind other pods. Rath looked up again – the window was just pulling into view, but he judged that he wasn’t quite far enough yet.

  “I said, ‘move away from the pod!’ ”

  “I can’t, I’m wounded,” Rath replied.

  “Sir, the device he attached to the bottom of the pod – it looks like a bomb,” one of the guards reported.

  “It’s not a bomb,” Rath told them, looking up at the windows one last time. “It’s a rocket.”

  Rath kicked the ignition lever with his foot, and the engine lit immediately, a gout of orange flame roaring from the base of the pod. Rath couldn’t hear anything above the din of the rocket, but as the pod accelerated upwards, he felt another bullet hit him in the right leg, and his heads-up display confirmed the wound accordingly. He grimaced, then tucked his face into the side of the pod, bracing for impact.

  * * *

  “Suspensys is under security lockdown. If you do not alter course, we will be forced to fire on you,” the controller repeated, his voice strained.

  “Woah, woah! Don’t shoot! Look, we’re having an emergency here, my computer’s telling me we have no more than five minutes of air remaining on board, we need someplace to dock, and we’re too far from the orbital transfer station – we need your help!”

  The pilot clicked off the radio, frowning out the cockpit window at the gleaming white space station ahead of them.

  “Where the fuck is our guy?” his copilot asked. “They’re not paying us enough to get shot at on this trip, and I don’t think the Suspensys controller is buying our little ‘emergency.’ ”

  “I don’t know – but I’m only giving him another minute, and then we’re out of here. Keep your eyes on the docking bay, that’s likely where he’ll be coming out.”

  “Stealing one of their ships, you think?”

  “Probably.”

  The Suspensys controller broadcast again: “Echo-Four-Three, this is your final warning—”

  The voice cut off abruptly, and the pilot glanced up to see the massive circle of viewing windows at the top of the space station explode in a glittering cloud of glass shards. A white cylinder rocketed out of the heart of the wreckage, hurtling into the vacuum and away from the space station.

  “Holy. Shit.”

  The copilot looked up. “I’m going to guess that’s him.”

  The pilot punched the ship’s accelerator. “Open the cargo bay.”

  They intercepted Rath and the pod a scant two minutes later, matching speeds and then expertly maneuvering him into the cargo hold. Rath pulled himself inside one of the vacuum suits waiting in the bay. He took a few deep breaths, shivering from the bitter cold of deep space, and then raised the pilots on the suit’s radio.

  “I’m in. Leave the bay doors open.”

  “Roger. Heading for Scapa now.”

  Rath winced and dialed up the painkiller dosage from his hemobots, then pulled himself back over to the pod, where it was tethered to the cargo bay wall. Below him, through the open bay doors, the dark sands of Scapa’s desert at night slid into view. Rath wondered if Jaymy was sleeping.

  “We’re in the gravity well,” the pilot called.

  “Altitude?”

  “Ninety-two kilometers, upper atmosphere. Two sentry ships just launched from the orbiting facility, on an intercept course. We’ve got about ninety seconds to get to FTL before they’re in range. Don’t have to remind you that we’re not armed or armored.”

  “I know,” Rath said. “Ditching the cargo now.”

  He unclipped the tether and took one last look through the pod’s glass at Arthin Delacourt III. Then, holding onto a support strut, he pushed the pod off with both feet, cringing at the pain from his wounded leg.

  “Cargo’s away, but stay over the pod, I need it on video,” Rath said.

  “Sixty seconds to intercept,” the pilot reminded him.

  “Roger, don’t go to FTL until I say so,” Rath told him.

  The pod had nearly disappeared from sight, when suddenly a bright flame lit the night sky far below. It was just a quick burst of orange light at first, and then it became a steady, white-hot streak, tearing across the atmosphere.

  The pod’s engineers might have dropped it to the bottom of the ocean, but they didn’t drop it from orbit.

  “Forty-five seconds,” the pilot reported. “We’ll have enough distance from the planet to go to FTL in twenty.”

  “Wait,” Rath called.

  The meteor seemed to brighten momentarily, and Rath dialed up his visual sensors, zooming in. The pod was disintegrating into multiple smaller pieces, each burning as it fell through the atmosphere.

  That should be evidence enough.

  “Okay, close the doors, let’s get out of here.”

  Rath made his way inside the bay’s airlock, and felt the ship go to faster-than-light travel moments after he closed the hatch tight behind him. When the airlock repressurized, he pulled off the spacesuit and limped through the inner hatch to the passenger area. He left bloody handprints on the inner hatch door, and a trail of blood on the floor of the passenger compartment. In the bathroom, he stripped down to his underwear, pulled a medical kit out of a wall cabinet, and started on the bullet wounds. He had finished stitching his shoulder and was rinsing the wound in his thigh with antiseptic solution when the pilot found him.

  “Jesus – do you need any help?”

  “No,” Rath said. The antiseptic solution mingled with blood as it trickled down his leg and into the drain on the floor.

  “Okay. Well, we got away clean, should be safe from pursuit. We’re not going to Volpes, by the way.”

  “What?” Rath looked up. “Says who?”

  “Says whoever’s paying for this insane flight plan. This message came in while you were on the station.” He held out a datascroll, but Rath’s hands were still soaked in blood, so the pilot held the scroll where Rath could read it.

 
  -Rendez-vous with passenger as planned

  -Change of routing: deliver passenger to planet Alberon

  -Instruct passenger to check secure messaging channels at once>

  “Do you have a medical facility on Alberon, or something?” the pilot asked, gesturing at Rath’s injuries.

  Rath shook his head. “No, another mission.”

  On Alberon … where I made my first kill.

  He clenched his teeth and picked up the stitching needle once more.

  28

  The briefing room was nearly full, but Beauceron found a seat in the front row, his usual spot. He sat down, pulled out his phone, and checked his messages for a few minutes. Rozhkov entered a minute later, and waved for silence.

  “Alright, settle down. Sliss, starting with you – where’s the report on Tuesday’s bus accident?”

  “In your inbox as soon as the meeting’s over, boss,” a female detective replied.

  “Mm-hm, somehow I doubt that,” Rozhkov replied. “We’re all getting a bit sloppy with reports – remember, the standard is: twenty-four hours from receipt of assignment, you should be sending me your report. I can only think of one person who consistently does so.”

  Several sets of eyes found Beauceron, and there was a cough and a snigger from the back of the room. He pretended not to notice. Rozhkov ignored it as well, and worked his way around the room, quizzing various detectives about the status of their open cases. When he was satisfied, he flipped open his datascroll.

  “Admin stuff, let’s see … holiday leave forms are due next week. Remember: you’re just requesting it, I need to approve it. So some of you are not going to get what you asked for,” Rozhkov raised his voice over the growing murmur of grumbles from the room, �
��but I will try to be fair, as always. If you worked a holiday last year, you shouldn’t have to this year. We’ve also got two new detectives joining us from the Academy – stand up and introduce yourselves, gentlemen.”

  He waited while two young men in the back stood up.

  “I’m Weathers,” the first said, giving an awkward wave to the room.

  “First name?” Rozhkov prompted.

  “Sorry – Derik, sir,” the man added.

  “And I’m Paine Oster,” the second said. “From Wikplatz.”

  “You’re from Alberon now,” Rozhkov corrected him. “We might not have been born here, but Alberon is our duty station, which means it’s our homeworld. Don’t forget it. And since you’re rookies, and don’t have any leave accrued, I’ll look forward to seeing both of you in the office over the holidays.”

  Beauceron smiled. Saw that one coming. Rozhkov scrolled down through his notes.

  “Okay, last item: you’ll notice the station’s a bit empty this morning. All of the uniforms are out prepping security for the parade and Senator Reid’s speech. If you don’t have an open case right now, you will be joining them, on orders from the commissioner – he wants every available officer on the street. Before you start complaining, there is a reason: we’ve got intelligence suggesting an attempt will be made on the senator’s life. Organized Crime is investigating, so let’s just hope it doesn’t become a Homicide investigation. I’m sending out patrol locations now. That’s all.”

  Beauceron sighed and checked his messages – he was slotted for a spot on the parade route, across from a hotel. He stood up and turned for the door.

  “Detective Beauceron, stop by my office on the way out,” Rozhkov told him.

  “Yes, sir,” Beauceron said. He went to his desk first, picking up his jacket and service pistol, which he put into its shoulder holster. Earlier in his career he had preferred hip holsters, but his expanded waistline made shoulder holsters much more comfortable. He pulled on his jacket and walked across the floor to Rozhkov’s office. Rozhkov and a lieutenant were discussing the training budget. When they were done, he ushered Beauceron in and closed the door.