An Honorable Defense Book 1 Crisis of Empire

by David : Thomas, T Thomas Drake

  “Well, Sir, we do have a problem with some of those old Mark I batteries, basically a lack of parts. The drive of the Sochi Gorod is out. But—”

  “Then get it fixed. Anything on this base that isn’t taut and ready for battle, fix that too.”

  “Yes, Sir . . . But, this envoy, Quintain, it wasn’t just his bluster, was it, that—?”

  “At the end of our interview, when he was oiled up and really making threats, I got a little hot under the collar. Offered to see him in Hell before I broke my oath to defend the Pact. Then he suddenly went all smooth, and smiled at me like some land of stalking cat. Said when he got there, he’d greet my daughter for me.”

  “Mora? What could he know about—?”

  “Exactly. Unless he and his thugs have taken her.”

  “Perhaps we should bring her disappearance to the attention of Auroran civil authorities, or to the KonaTatsu.”

  “I don’t know, Captain. After this Spile thing, I don’t incline to trust any of the locals. I think they’re all a little zoomy. Now that the succession may be in doubt, they’ve all got visions of empire. Even Deirdre Sallee will go unstable, you’ll see. And the Kona Tatsu—no, not them. Not yet.”

  “Then we must call on Thwaite, Sir. Have him muster his Marines and take Palaccio apart to find her. If you can’t trust him completely, Sir, then send me. I can rescue your daughter for you. With or without the Marines.”

  “No, Captain . . . Hildred. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but your place is here. My best engineering officer. I need you to get my squadron up to battle readiness. I believe we have hard times ahead of us.”

  Pushing back his disappointment, Samwels let his eyes flick past the admiral’s head, to the glowing bridge of noble gases that bound Castor to Pollux. Ephemera. Seven hundred years. Such a fleeting time to enjoy this grandeur.

  “What do you keep looking at, Captain?” The admiral turned and stared out the window. “Those planets aren’t going anywhere, are they?”

  Samwels smiled briefly. “No, Sir.”

  Chapter 9

  Taddeuz Bertingas: FIELDS OF ALIEN CORN

  Tad and Mora left the Satyrs’ restaurant by the back way, past bins of green marrow and barrels that leaked brown sauce with a piquant smell. The clientele was definitely Gitchoo.

  Outside, they turned from a short alleyway into a main street, still somewhere in Chinatown. Tad immediately sensed a change in the atmosphere. Where before there had been roar and bustle, now there was a tense hush. It reminded him of the high country, or a forest, moments before a rainstorm swept through—or the front edge of a terrible fire.

  A Satyr, one of the cooks, stepped into the alley behind them. He leaned against one wall, pulled a roll of tabac out of his apron, and took a bite with his flat grinding teeth. The slow smile of addiction spread across his big-nosed face—then faded. The Satyr sensed it, too. Tad saw him spit the wad, still fresh, behind a barrel and hurry back into his kitchen.

  Tad looked left and right, up and down the street: shopkeepers quietly shutting their fronts, steel mesh coming down, vendors’ carts wheeling around corners, jongleurs stuffing balls into their pockets and hurrying along. This part of the city was closing up, and it was just mid-morning. Only scattered knots of people, Human and alien, the innocenti, still walked normally or stood looking into the display windows of the big stores.

  “Well, which way do we go?” Mora asked. She hadn’t felt it yet.

  He strained his ears, trying to sense . . . From the right, from a side street half a block down, came a sudden blast of noise, shouting, a clatter, the high jangle of breaking glass. Two men walked out into view, moving backwards, using the measured steps of crawler handlers guiding a big rig. Perhaps they were more like parade marshals. When they were well into the center of the pavement, a hundred feet down from Tad and Mora, the first of the others, the mob, broke from the side street in a tangle of heads and arms, waving sticks, and hoarse voices.

  “What is that?” Mora asked.

  Tad shook himself, took her arm, and tried to fade back into the alleyway. But it was a dead end; the Satyrs had shut and locked their kitchen door. The mob had already spotted Tad and Mora.

  The handlers seemed to be directing it. The two men pointed and stepped back, and a pocket of the riot moved in their direction. Tad noticed, however, as he turned away, that when others picked up an abandoned pushcart and made to heave it through the front window of a Quality Mart store, the marshals blew whistles and tased them. The errant rioters dropped in a twitch.

  Tad and Mora fled down into the alley, as far as it would take them. He was trying to make the space behind a steel drum big enough to hide both of them when the first of the rioters dashed in. Rough hands pulled the two out into the street again, pushed them up against the spalled concrete of a wall. A ring of angry faces surrounded them, all Human. Most had the scuffed look of dole receivers, and a high percentage were bleary with alcohol or gleaming with stimulants. Except for the men who moved like handlers: they wore fresh clothing, of padded shockcloth, and had brassards that were engraved with the serpentine insignia of Haiken Maru.

  And Haiken Maru, Tad thought distractedly, was sole owner of the Quality Mart chain and a dozen other local distributors. Ah-ha!

  The first blow came from the rioter opposite Tad, a tall, red-haired, thick-muscled man with a wobbling gut and a hanging, unhinged jaw. He slurred a threat as he swung a piece of heavy wooden batten at Bertingas’ head. Tad pushed Mora down and ducked his head. The club rang like iron as it struck the concrete and rebounded.

  The second blow was already launched from somewhere else when Tad reached up, grabbed the belt of the nearest marshal wearing a Haiken Maru badge, and pulled his head into the flight path. The blow stopped in mid-stroke.

  “Hey, watch the hands, Alien Lover!” the marshal protested.

  “Do you recognize this face?” Bertingas said slowly and distinctly. His fingers keyed the AID, which still had its holofocus attached. The head of Valence Elidor materialized in the air before them. Lips pursed, looking judicious, he was saying, “—Governor made a startling discovery of who, in the Communications section, actually did all the work . . . ”

  Although the edges were blurred, the background dark, the image was a startling likeness. And those defects were to be expected when recording from a non-holo camera: the scrap of video had been taken from Tad’s left retinal implant, the sound from a tap off his auditory nerves. Once installed, his Auto Track had saved Bertingas hundreds of hours of taking notes at important meetings, but he’d never expected it to save his life.

  The marshal gaped at the head. Tad let the implications settle in. When they did, the man turned to the ring of rioting Humans and shouted them back, making strategic use of his taser. They turned and scattered, with the Haiken Maru hireling trailing the pack. Tad and Mora were suddenly alone in the alley.

  Bertingas sank against the wall, making an effort to touch all points of his back—lumbar vertebrae, short ribs, shoulder blades, nape of neck—to the cool concrete. He’d heard it was good therapy for tension. It seemed to work.

  Mora talked.

  “I knew the H.M. were stirring up trouble. The last time Father and I were planetside—it was in Thwaite’s outer office, now that I think of it—they actually tried to petition him—bribe is more like it—something about using Gemini as an auxiliary dock for their transports. But that must have just been a cover. Then, when I went out that day, some men seemed to be following me. One of them had a notch in his ear, where the graft was peeling away. I noticed that very particularly. And now, today, it’s the same man . . . Well, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?”

  “The one you laid hands on. You were wonderful, Tad. Do you mind me calling you that? Tad . . . Anyway, the same rough man. And he works for Haiken Maru. And they are trashing the alien quarter. Now what do you make of that? I wonder if they’re the same ones who tried to kidnap me yesterday. And Thwaite’s i
n on it, I’ll bet. This riot—which didn’t do all that much damage, did it?—is probably just a put-on. And the real purpose was to snatch me again. Kill you and snatch me. And then—”

  “Mora?”

  “Yes, Tad?”

  “Would you hold that thought? Please? Just for two minutes? I need some time to think myself.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course.” She closed her mouth with a snap and stood there in a sulk.

  Was the Haiken Maru out to kill him again? No. If the marshals of that riot had been given specific instructions about Taddeuz Bertingas, then no implied relationship with Elidor would have scared them off. The whole affair had to be random violence. A crisis builder. Chipping away at the social stability on Palaccio—and at the political position Governor Sallee held. If the H.M. were going to wield mob rule like a club, it became more important than ever for Communications to get some kind of defense for its installations. Tad might have to hold open their last links with the rest of the cluster, and to Central Center.

  “We still have to find this Choora Maas,” he said finally. “Somewhere out in the plantations.”

  “May I speak now?”

  “By all means.”

  “If you’re going to travel with me, Counselor, then you will have to take me seriously.”

  “Eh?”

  “You dismiss my observations, opinions, and theories. You discount my ability”—she raised her military-issue repulsor—“to defend us, especially in that last little tussle. Yet you’re pretty generous with your eyes, when the occasion arises. You treat me, in general, like baggage. That is going to stop. Now.”

  “Well, all right. Sorry . . .”

  “Sorry isn’t good enough, Counselor. I am kin to—and a confidante of—the admiral commanding your local arm of the Central Fleet. Either that’s good enough to be partners with a Level 9 Cluster Bureaucrat, or I walk my own way and you can find your precious Tyoura Moss with a compass and a dowsing rod. Comprends-tu?”

  “Right! Yes! Okay! I understand!” Bertingas made an effort to modulate his voice, getting control. “So—how do we get out to the Plantations? Where, may I point out, it is in your interest to go. Because staying within the precincts of Meyerbeer has so far proven hazardous to your continued health—and mine. Notch Ear or not.”

  “You have a car at Government Block, don’t you? That goes with the deputy director’s job, I know.”

  “I can hardly show up there in these clothes. Borrowed and, ah”—he fingered the hole in his front—“strategically damaged.”

  “We could use public transit.”

  “The levitrail doesn’t extend as far out as we’re going.”

  “Then rent an aircar.”

  “The rentals all have transponders. Two minutes’ thinking and a little tapwork will put us right into the hands of your friends and mine.”

  “Then buy a car.”

  “Using what for money? I’ve got about four Rands in my pockets, the price of a stale meatroll and cold tea.”

  “Betty has some secret funds.” Mora tapped the AID hanging at her belt.

  “Then let’s find an agency.”

  They walked, surface level, on cobbled and tiled streets that were still partly deserted, toward the outer edges of Chinatown. There open space allowed the dealers in various forms of transportation to display their wares under the hot sun.

  Tad stared out over acres of dusty, dented metal, glazed airskirting, and flaking paint. He saw fan ducts with blue scorches that suggested burned bearings and bad fires. He saw patched plastic and mismatched paint around junctures that suggested ejection maneuvers and salvaged bodywork. He saw leaking fuel pods and dribbling oil.

  “Do any of them fly?” he asked the nimble-footed Cowra, the lot’s owner and chief sales negotiator. The furry alien was doing its autonomic two-step in the aisle between these marred and sagging hulks.

  “Oh yess, Effendi. All caars fly. Fly very weel.”

  Bertingas hunkered down to look underneath an old red Forza. It had been a two-person sports model—before someone tried to take the turbine out of it sideways. Maybe someone had put it back. Maybe not. The car’s long body had a sloped nose and curving airfoils. There were hints that it had been race-prepared.

  “Take a look at this bus!” Mora crowed, pointing to a green Bundel. Tad lifted his head long enough to see that its fans were missing half a dozen blades, like broken teeth. The unbalanced forces would make it shed a dozen more the first time the Bundel was fired up. Tad bent back to the Forza.

  “Say, that’s a cute little car!” she said, after a minute. She was winking at him and hiking her head back toward the Bundel.

  Bertingas suspected Mora was just trying to dupe the Cowra with phony enthusiasm. Give it a sense of overconfidence—as if anyone could stuff a backbone into their moist little personalities.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Most exceelent choice, Memsa’b. Lots of liift. Very faast. Take you kliick-klick.”

  “But there’s not as much leg room as in the Bundel, Tad.” She rolled her eyeballs at him, trying to signal something—what, he didn’t know.

  “Blades are shot,” Bertingas said absently. He ran a hand along the Forza’s red plastic bodywork. “Can we try this one out?”

  “Aaahh. That is very haard, Effendi. Flight test requires a bond, registration forms, indemnities, traffic control codes, airworthiness checks and stickers. Much paaperwoork. You understand? Once you own, we can comply with all formalities very quickly. But not, unfortunately, on an unregistered vehicle. You understand?”

  “Perfectly. Well, Mora, I think this is the car we want.”

  “Let’s see what the price is, shall we—dear?” Again the winking and blinking. He tried to signal back, but didn’t know what she wanted.

  In the prefab booth that the Cowra called his “orfice,” Mora put her AID on the table and coupled its beam with the lot’s inventory and sales computer. While the three of them looked on, the two machines dickered in pancode. At the end, the lot’s computer gave a long whistle and spoke a figure for the Humans and the Cowra.

  The latter’s bushy eyebrows came down. “Your maashine is very smaart, Memsa’b. Too smaart. Take me for loong ride.” He tapped its case with one long, abraded claw. He seemed to be memorizing the Naval serial codes molded into its top surface. “Too smaart.”

  He went about setting up the change of ownership through his computer, fingering the keyboard with the pads under his eight claws. The lot’s automated guidance system put the red aircar into a smoky hover and brought it around to the front. The Forza settled down with a slight list to port.

  Mora and Tad climbed in over the airskirting and pulled down the hatches. The interior smelled of cracked leather, resins baked in the sun, and ancient oil. Tad thumbed the controls and the little car shot vertically into the outer circles of the Meyerbeer pattern. The onboard computer seemed to have a good relationship with Air Control, so Tad let his AID punch in their destination, out in the country.

  The car lifted its nose like a horse and spun off to the south.

  “I’m still wondering how you’re going to do it,” Mora said, after a few minutes of silent flying.

  “Do what?”

  “Seduce me in such a small car. The Bundel would have been much more practical for that.”

  Ah-haaa! “Seduce you? Is that what I’m trying to do?” he asked innocently.

  “Well, aren’t you? You’ve been leering at me and acting like it ever since we left your apartment.”

  So, now what? If he denied the intention, this spoiled girl would take it as a personal affront. The results of that were unpredictable. She might lapse into a stinging silence—which was not the worst of all possible outcomes. She might decide to leave suddenly, via the ejection seat and ED harness. Or she might shoot him. And if he got too chummy and played up to her obvious advances . . . Well, their forced partnership would get sticky. And there was a Central Fleet admiral somew
here in the background of that. Relations with a Human girl were a lot more complicated than they had been with his Deoorti pretender.

  He wished he could drive the car manually for a while. Something to do with his hands.

  While Bertingas considered his reply, Mora changed the subject. As if nothing had been said.

  “I do hope Daddy isn’t having more problems with Governor Spider.”

  “Who?”

  “Spile, of Arachne Cluster. That’s what I call him. It fits. He sits there, at the center of his plots and plans, sending out agents, threatening everybody. He’s quite mad, you know.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He wants to dominate the entire Pact. Says it outright in his speeches. It’s only the problems he has in his own cluster, two or three rebellions a year, that have kept Central Fleet from taking direct action.”

  “So, why is he a danger to your father?”

  “Because Spile has backers. The Haiken Maru for one. I have the proof here in Betty’s hindbrain. They’re providing him with ships and men.”

  “Warships? But the H.M. are commercial. How would they get hold of warships?”

  “I don’t know, but they must have ways. I’ll wager that’s why they wanted to snatch me.”

  “Because they’re selling munitions now?” Tad was getting lost.

  “No, dummy. Because Betty and I penetrated their scatterbase and know how the scam works.”

  “You’ve told your father about this, of course?”

  “Wasn’t time. Betty only mentioned her findings on the flight here.”

  “Maybe, for your own safety, you’d better tell your AID to wipe it.”

  “Oh no! I’m going to present this before the high secretary, when one is finally elected, and expose the Haiken Maru’s treachery once and for all.”

  “And if the Secretary happens to be a Haiken Maru candidate—what then?”

  Mora looked at him sideways, then down at her lap. “Then, I suppose, I’d better wipe Betty.”

  “Good thought.”

  The car was descending, according to the coordinates in Tad’s AID, toward a grove of mutated Sequoiadendron compacta. They were on the highland border between two latifundia. Bertingas maneuvered to avoid the largest trees and set down in what he thought was a clear spot. Mora sprang her hatch and swung a leg over the airskirting.