Dying For Space

by S. J. Higbee

  George seemed to have become a real chatterbox since Father died, which was odd – I hadn’t pegged him as someone overly fond of the sound of his own voice. Still, my ability to judge character wasn’t exactly my shiniest skill, as I’d actually volunteered for the post of the General’s daughter when I had the option of walking away.

  “After consulting with the medic and his team, he’s confirmed that our General died of a massive heart attack. The scale of the damage shows that it was brought on by his habit of ignoring the maintenance parameters on his augs.” George paused. “Because of the resultant damage to his brainstem as the augs fused, transplantation or regeneration was not an option.”

  David sighed, before murmuring, “He hated the medics messing around with him.”

  Tired down to my marrow now that I was starting to warm up, I could only nod. One of Father’s regular rants was whenever the medi-suite sent him a notification that his augs needed servicing.

  In amongst the swirl of journo-jabber and accusations, no one ever seriously questioned that he died of a heart attack. The debate on its cause is a different matter. I have always been an obvious suspect, but fortunately for me, the people who really mattered – Norman’s Shadows and his personal staff – never suspected me of killing him.As Peter said to me at the funeral, tears streaming down his face, “These things they are saying about you, Miss – it’s obscene. We know you loved him, as we did.” He clasped my hand, slipping a tab between my fingers before stumbling away again.

  So why am I setting this down now? Because it’s boring a hole in my conscience and so many outrageous lies and stories are sloshing around about the whole affair, the true version should be known after I’ve gone. Though I’m hanging on as long as I can. Because there’s a man with burning brown eyes waiting for me in Hell…

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  As soon as we ventured out of the banqueting room, the crowd pressed around us shouting questions. Tempers were fraying.

  David, still at my side, tried to pull me through the crush. But I decided that wasn’t the way to go. The Red-Sashes had done a great job so far and leaving them to deal with this situation was plain shoddy.

  “As many of you know…” I began.

  Most people went silent, shushing those still yelling.

  “As you know, Father and I arranged a meeting to talk through the situation. But, we hadn’t gotten very far when…” Blinking, I continued, “Thing is. He died. The medi team says it was a heart attack.”

  No problem with noise, now. You could’ve heard a tachy-probe ping in the pent silence.

  “They gotta do more tests, but they reckon he hadn’t kept up with his aug maintenance schedule.”

  “Or he was offed!” Several voices hollered in agreement with this shouted comment.

  “You know how long we’ve been penned up in there. You saw the Enforcers go in. Everyone who was in the room when Father died has been fully scanned and interrogated. And cleared of any wrongdoing.”

  There was a sudden chorus of questions.

  David stepped in front of me. “Please, no more questions for Miss Elizabeth. She’s at the end of her airline – we all are.” Tears ran down his face, as his arm went around my shoulders. When the crowd parted to let us through, the sound of weeping followed us all the way to the lifts.

  I opened the door to my room and stopped. The carcass of the kill dog Axil managed to blast was still lying on the floor, along with the ripped remains of General Bear. I should have taken a deep breath and calmly asked David for his assistance in finding another room where I could sleep. Instead I wailed like a fresh-smacked toddler, oblivious of Jessica’s fury. David put an arm around me, surprisingly strong as I sagged against him, while he yelled into his com. In a surprisingly short time, a posse of Shadows arrived, accompanied by Diana.

  I flung myself into her arms. “It’s all ruined! Everything broken…”

  “What were you thinking – bringing her back here?” snapped Diana, over my head.

  “I didn’t know!” Poor David was all but wringing his hands. “I’d heard there’d been dogs – but this! This isn’t a dog, it’s a monstrosity. And I didn’t know that they’d fought in her room. No wonder she looked so frayed when she walked into the banqueting room. I’m truly sorry, Elizabeth, I—”

  “Never mind about sorrying at her. Just find her somewhere safe, comfortable and clean to stay! Shouldn’t be too hard, should it?” Diana wasn’t cutting him any slack.

  “Of course. Let’s go to the Primrose Guest Quarters. They’re just down the corridor on the same level. C’mon Lizzy.” David swung me up in his arms – a feat he wouldn’t have been capable of a few months ago – and escorted by a posse of Shadows, walked a short distance down the corridor.

  I finally managed to haul it together, blew my nose and muttered, “You been sticking at the training, then?”

  “Oh yeah. The General…” David’s voice faltered, “He insisted I get speed-aug’d as well as work out alongside his guards.”

  David training with the Shadows! No wonder he can hoist me about.

  I’d also like to report that once we arrived at the attractively appointed suite of rooms, I bid everyone a dignified, ‘Good morning and thank you for your kind consideration.’ However, that didn’t happen either.

  Some brat wearing my body stood at the door and absolutely refused to enter the room until the good people accompanying me had opened all the closets and checked them to ensure there were no secret passageways. What can I say? It had been a hard twenty-four hours.

  Once I was assured that there was no sign of any tunnel or passage lurking in the cupboards, I staggered into the room, stripped off the dress and crawled under the bedcovers, vac’d flat with exhaustion. I was asleep in less than a nanosec.

  *

  Eddy! Where’s he got to? My first thought when I awoke.

  No way was I going to be able to relax till I knew the answer to that one. I jumped out’ve bed and hauled on the pink dress, wishing that instead of making a stupid fuss earlier, I’d thought to pack some clothes. It was a comfort to find a pair of Shadows standing outside.

  “Eddy – the bloke who loosed the kill dogs. Where is he?”

  They exchanged a look.

  “Sorry, Miss.” The older guard shook his head. “Order went out to snag the slimer.” He shrugged. “Only, he was gone.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  “Looks like he’d bribed one of them flooding space jocks to take him and his friends off the planet.”

  “Friends?” One of them would be Riona…

  Evidently mistaking my expression for disbelief, the other Shadow interrupted, “Three other ident codes were swiped through at the shuttle port same time as young Wright, miss. The General sent out a Search and Destroy coding on all of ’em.”

  The older Shadow nudged him. “That’s her brother.”

  “D’you want to rescind the General’s order, Miss? Cos that’ll take some doing. The General had him highlighted as a ‘highly hazardous individual’.”

  “Why would I do a star-crazed thing like that? Highly hazardous just about sums him up. Father was right on target, there. What happens, now?”

  The Shadow raised his eyebrows, but he answered smoothly enough, “Those with a HHI label get a hit squad sent after their sorry selves. But I’m not too sure if we got around to that with Wright.”

  “Please see that it’s an Alpha Primo priority.” I yawned. “Sorry for disturbing you. If I could trouble you, I need to retrieve my clothes.”

  The other guard produced a trolleybot containing all my possessions. Apparently, Diana had returned to my room and had everything packed up. After thanking them for looking after it, I closed the door, had a long shower and changed into some nightclothes with the intention of going back to bed – I was certainly tired enough. But on shutting my eyes, I once more watched Norman’s fierce gaze bore into my brain. Shortly afterwards, I got up and dressed.


  *

  In the first weeks after Norman’s death, the large fresco of him in the entrance hall was almost hidden by piles of floral tributes, holo-mems, pics and toys – mostly the doll of him in his full dress uniform. He would have been delighted to see that the offerings around my statue were paltry in comparison. For a week, the whole building was swathed in black bunting, while funereal music constantly played.

  Two days after his death, Restormel Chapel was opened to mourners. The walls were lined with holos of Norman and his exploits, while his body appeared in the open casket, surrounded by an honour guard of Shadows. George and I led the first procession of well-wishers to pay our respects and lay a wreath at the foot of the casket.

  As we approached the coffin, I could see the outline of the General’s nose… his jowly chin… his bushy eyebrows… My throat closed up. I’m so sorry, Father. Didn’t want to kill you…

  In fact, the funeral was a godsend. George set everyone to work on the hard slog of scrubbing Restormel from the top down to the scruffiest corner with the solid excuse that we would be playing host to most of the heads of state throughout Sector Two and some from further afield. It helped pull everyone back working together as a team again and healed many of the rifts that had opened up in the tense days before Father’s death.

  I was back down in Procurement, working flat-out to ensure that the disastrous strike by my well-intentioned staff didn’t result in killing some lacklucked merc patrolling the furthest reaches of Sector Two. Not helped by the fact that we were one short, given that Riona hadn’t returned to work and no one seemed to know where she was. Her heartbroken father was convinced that she – somehow – must have fallen victim to the kill dogs and we just hadn’t found her body. I didn’t share my own suspicions with him, as he’d always been so proud of her.

  Not that I had much time to brood on such details. When I wasn’t trying to expedite stalled orders; calm down panicking quartermasters out on our front lines with firm promises of overdue supplies; or reassure suppliers worried by Father’s death – I was playing hostess to George’s host.

  Between us, we welcomed all the heads of state, colonial governors, opposition politicians and former mercs, along with appropriate family members. Even a couple of old adversaries attended the funeral, though I was relieved to see that Fredericks, the merc leader who’d blown up me and Wynn on Ceres, had the good taste to stay away.

  I began to realise just how much more difficult Father had made everything, when on the eve of his funeral I registered that we’d hosted six banquets in a row and every single one had gone off without a hitch. No scowling moodiness or abrupt conversation changes. No rants about delicate subjects. No shark-grinned baiting of an unfortunate subordinate and no explosions of temper. On the other hand, there hadn’t been gales of bellowing laughter at a series of witty, well-told stories, or rapt attention during his recollection of a particularly desperate encounter. Or the vividness of his charisma washing through the room as he made his entrance. Life at Restormel was more peaceful and sane. And a lot more boring.

  Boring is good, Lizzy. In comparison to the alternative.

  I knew that Jessica was also correct when she pointed out it was probably guilt jabbing my soft spots, when I kept waiting to hear his baritone rumble. Why did it feel so much like grief?

  *

  His funeral was a grand, solemn occasion where many fine things were said about him. While some were true, many were overblown to the point of being ridiculous. I wore a simple black gown that was appropriate and tasteful, so braced myself for criticism from Father when I first entered the Chapel. Before recalling that I’d never hear another word from him, again.

  George read a lesson and I performed the lament I’d sung at Jessica’s memorial. It was, after all, one of his favourite songs and seemed particularly fitting.

  We held a Press Conference the day after his funeral to ensure that everyone realised the P’s were open for business as usual and I didn’t trip over my tongue, once. Even in the middle of my remorse and grief, I realised just how much easier it was being daughter to a dead General Norman.

  *

  A week after the funeral, I was working down in Procurement on my own. For once, I wasn’t toiling through the stack of recs that were still stacking up. I was picking my way through the tab Peter had slipped me during Norman’s funeral. It had been the first time since all the fuss surrounding his death that I’d had a chance to go through it.

  Once Father’s death had been confirmed and we were cleared of any wrongdoing, the Shadows had immediately sealed his room off and copies of the contents of his workdesk were officially forwarded to both myself and George. This must be a tranche of info Peter reckons is for my eyes only.

  After George had commandeered Procurement as his unofficial HQ during those desperate hours leading up to our final confrontation, I’d had the area swept for nanobugs, spyflakes and camocams. Fortunately, our default frequencies were standard, so finding them wasn’t the nightmare it could’ve been. As I’d feared, he’d been busy – there were upwards of two dozen items of spyware littering up our workplace which he hadn’t seen fit to remove when life returned to something approaching normal. Which was why I decided this was the only workdesk where I’d risk running Norman’s tab. If Rick had managed to install security overrides that zilched Father’s boff-boys on Elsbeth’s model, it stood to reason his own workdesk would be also heavily shielded.

  Heart pounding, I placed the tab on the reader. Seven cred accounts peeled open. My jaw dropped at the amounts in each one – all keyed to Father’s DNA. And suddenly, a request from George the day after his death for anything with his DNA to be rounded up and destroyed made sense. “So no one can use it for their shoddy ends,” was the explanation, which made complete sense. But I was willing to bet a goodly portion of the credstack in these accounts that George tucked away had at least one good sample of Father’s DNA for this eventuality.

  I shook my head, tired and winded. I would turn these accounts over to the P’s, of course – but right now I felt too overwhelmed. Besides I needed to figure out how to do it without dropping Peter in the slurry. I’d just retrieved the sodding tab, after all…

  “Elizabeth? My dear?”

  I knew that voice, alright. I stared down at the tab. How could this be still transmitting, given that I’d removed it from the workdesk? Was there some kind of gismo that George planted underneath it?

  “Elizabeth? Can you hear me? I can see you right enough. You’re looking a tad rinsed out, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  I stared back, on the edge of hyperventilating. “Rick?”

  “Sorry to give you such a shock, my dear. Obviously, I needed to ensure you were completely alone before contacting you.”

  “You’re alive?”

  “Very much so. I realise this must be something of a surprise…”

  “Don’t believe it,” I said flatly. Reckon this is a putrid trick – like that sex tab Father had made. Someone is out to trap me. “What was the food served the first time I visited Procurement? What was I wearing on my face during the meal when I agreed to work for you? What favour did you do for me, just before you died?”

  The Rick I recalled didn’t flounder – keeping calm was his default mode. So I was waiting and watching for any hesitancy. There wasn’t any.

  “Let me see… chicken, I believe. After all that red meat at William’s table, I figured you’d probably appreciate a change – and strawberries. They’d just arrived, I recall. As for the decoration on your face – you had a little butterfly on your cheek. It appeared to flutter as you smiled – very distracting and quite original.” Rick paused for a beat, leaning forward and I held my breath, caught between yearning and fear. “As for the favour – I helped facilitate the sale of those wretched ball gowns the ruled Elsbeth’s life far too much. Your friend needed a new heart – how did that go?”

  I stared at his face. It was – it really was Rick. “You
couldn’t have let me know? Got word through, somehow, that you’d survived?”

  “Not while William lived. The man had a nose for any kind of double-dealing that was little short of uncanny. Expecting you to keep a secret of this magnitude would have been plain unfair – and far too much of a risk.” His face softened into the kindly expression I recalled. “How are you, my dear?”

  I was shaking. Tears were running down my face. “Really glad you’re not dead,” I managed.

  “I’m so very sorry. But I do need to let you know – warn you. I understand a certain individual is poised to take over The Firm. Do step very, very carefully around him, won’t you? You can’t trust him further than you can flick him with your little finger.”

  I took a breath and wiped my face. “How’d you escape? Were you really injured?”

  Rick’s smile was bleak. “Oh yes. Poor Bernal was beside himself, which was probably why the boy allowed himself to be captured…” his voice thickened and he looked away.

  I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry… about Bernal. But how did you get—?”

  Rick’s gaze flicked away for a fleeting sec. “Unfortunately, my dear, time and frequency trackers wait for no man. But should you need your own escape chute out of that snakepit, do be aware most people are there for the express purpose of earning a package of creds. It is, after all, what defines the purpose of mercenaries.”

  “Are you now solid? Is there anything I can do?”

  “Ah, my dear,” Rick’s warm voice made me want to weep, again. “There are things you need to know to keep you breathing and upright. The reason why Elsbeth ran? George offered her a certain nasty little phial that would end our leader’s life. Only he’d misjudged her – she was so beside herself with disgust that he’d betray her Daddy that she threatened to go to Norman with the whole thing. Which was when George offered to help her escape off Restormel. And though I don’t have the proof, I’m willing to bet my last cred he was the one who rejigged her yacht to explode in space.”