“I know. Which is why this job has the top-most priority,” Damont said, pursing his lips in a concerned expression.
“Better to roll in a battle flotilla,” Kal said. “Make a show of force. Deploy troops. Shake Oz down. If this missing equipment is that sensitive, nothing short of a major offensive will recover it.”
“It’s not that simple,” Damont said.
“And why not?”
There was a telling silence as Kal’s boss shifted in his seat again.
“Neither Tremonton nor their liaison with the CAF want any word of this missing equipment to get out to the general public,” he said. “The Conflux went through hell putting down the Ambit League. And the civilian population is easily spooked as a result. The next election cycle will be coming up, and there are people in the Conflux Assembly on Earth who are eager to make sure there is no substance to any rumors about a second war.”
Kal stood up and walked over to where her boss had a couch against the far wall. A gently animated image of a nameless gas giant planet was mounted over the couch. She stared at the bands of the gas giant’s clouds as they slowly swirled and rotated.
“There’s more,” Damont said. “I’ve got reason to believe that someone inside the CAF is working against us on this. I’m hoping that if you can sniff out who, from the inside, then I can order some arrests and we can plug a hole in our ranks.”
“Sympathizers?” Kal said, somewhat incredulously. “With the Ambit League?”
“Or they’re greedy,” Damont said. “People who have cash note symbols in their eyes.”
“Then it’ll take more than just me,” Kal said, her face still fixed towards the digital painting.
“I know,” Damont said. “That’s why you’re taking someone new with you.”
Kal jerked her chin over her shoulder.
“You’re saddling me with a rookie? I thought you said this was a top-priority mission?”
“It is, but he’s no ordinary rookie. He’s a CAF Reservist who also works for Tremonton. A test pilot. Knows all about the armor design in question. In fact, they were going to send him into Oz to put some of that armor through its paces. Then the shipments began to turn up missing. He’s got a high-security clearance, and has been vetted through both Tremonton and CAF channels.”
“That’s all well and good, sir,” Kal said, turning on a heel and pacing back and forth in front of the couch, “but it doesn’t help me figure out where to start. With over a dozen habitable worlds in Oz, across twenty star systems, somebody’s going to have to point me in the right direction, or I might as well stay home.”
“There’s a man already on the inside,” Damont said. “Someone I’ve been monitoring closely.”
“One of ours?” Kal asked.
“Yes. Or at least, he used to be. CAF veteran. Brilliant service record. When the war was declared over, he signed on with one of the civilian relief organizations that went into Oz to try to pick up the pieces. He vanished shortly afterward. But then he reappeared. Feeding information covertly to CAF Intelligence, about the activities of the Ambit League. He knows where those shipments might have been taken.”
“And my pilot? Is he going to fly the stolen armor back home? One suit at a time?”
“Don’t be silly,” Damont snapped. “If it’s true the Ambit League is reverse-engineering this stolen equipment, CAF Central Command wants to know about it. Both they and the Tremonton corporate people want an experienced person on the scene, who can evaluate first-hand whatever it is the Ambit League may be trying to cobble together in Oz.”
“You said he’s Reserve?” Kal said.
“Yes.”
“Does he have any covert training? Battle experience?”
“No.”
“Terrific. And my contact inside Oz? Is he reliable?”
“I don’t really know. I think so, yes.”
“You think so?”
This time it was Damont who stood up out of his chair and began to pace.
“I’m sorry, Kalliope, but I really can’t get more specific than that. You’re right. If the Central Command wasn’t following Assembly orders not to make a ruckus, then I’d pitch this mess over to the fleet people and let them marshal a few combat brigades, at the very least. But we’ve all been given strict instructions to handle this matter quietly. And quickly. Tremonton says it’s going to halt shipments until the matter is resolved, but without those shipments the testing can’t be completed, which means the Assembly’s Defense Office won’t sign off on the contracts for the new design.”
“Which means Tremonton doesn’t get its money,” Kal said, sighing.
“You always were quick on the uptake,” Damont said.
Kal remained where she was, chin on her chest. So the matter was multi-dimensional: economic, as well as political.
When Kal didn’t say anything more, her boss cleared his throat in a mildly uncomfortable fashion.
“If you don’t think you’re up to it,” Damont said, “I can always find somebody else.”
“Not quickly enough to make a difference,” Kal said. “We’ve already wasted enough time bringing me here, so there’d be no point sending me back. You knew I’d not turn down the orders because you knew once you explained it to me that I’d have no choice but to say yes.”
Damont merely had a slight, knowing smile on his face.
Kal momentarily considered punching her boss in the teeth. Instead, she breathed deeply, then exhaled very slowly.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s have it then. A full mission dossier.”
Damont slid a wafer drive across his desk.
Kal walked over and picked the drive up in her left hand, testing its flexible holographic memory crystals between her thumb and forefinger.
“One more thing, Kal,” Damont said.
“A catch?” she said, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, I am afraid. Because this is such a sensitive job, I can’t promise you any parachutes. Once you’re inside Oz, you’re officially on your own. There won’t be any CAF quick-reaction teams ready to break down someone’s front door and pull you out.”
Kal continued to press the wafer drive between her thumb and forefinger. She allowed a tiny grin to slip across her lips.
“You didn’t bring me all this way because I need someone to hold my hand for me.”
She picked up her cup and raised it.
Damont did the same.
And together they emptied their glasses.
Chapter 3: uncharted territory
Kal crawled quietly through the piles of rotting plant debris. She was five days out of a shower, and covered in scrapes and cuts. The trek through the forest hadn’t been an easy one. Once she’d made the decision to abandon the lifeboat and set out on foot, there’d been only one choice: wait for any sign that her attackers had come down from orbit, then try to locate them and hitch a ride back to space. Otherwise she’d be marooned for life in a place that wasn’t even on the Conflux’s pioneer world charts.
Kal didn’t know if anyone else had survived the destruction of the Broadbill. If they had, she didn’t owe them any favors. Thief’s justice, more or less.
Except for Tim. The Reservist hadn’t deserved to die.
Kal closed her eyes briefly and tried to block him out of her mind. She didn’t need anything distracting her. She pulled the tiny emergency transponder device out of her makeshift harness and examined the reading on its tiny screen. The device could either broadcast actively, or receive passively. She’d been using it for two days to track the signal coming from a very large ship which had passed over her lifeboat’s landing site the day after she abandoned it.
That ship was her key to escaping. As well as continuing the mission.
Moving slowly and deliberately, Kal neared the lip of a ledge in the forest floor. Over her head, the sky was partially occluded by the mass of trees that towered a hundred meters into the air, darkening the ground. Her abused spacer’s coverall
was damp and filthy, with holes at the elbows and knees. All she had to work with was the small emergency backpack from the lifeboat, her issue P3110 pistol in its holster, and five magazines for the pistol, worth ten shots each.
Not ideal armament, under the circumstances. Kal would have preferred tactical artillery instead.
Dead leaves clung to Kal’s skin like wet paper. She peered intently over the lip of the ledge. Half a kilometer distant, the mighty trees had been flattened in a rough halo under the belly of the enemy craft. Which was mammoth. A metal whale on stilts. The heat tiles of the ship were grossly discolored from its many, many in-atmosphere trips. Underneath the vessel—between its massive landing pylons—four personnel hatches lay open with four ramps extending down to the ground, like rusty tongues. There was also a fifth, much larger cargo hatch. Its wide ramp was populated with people moving crates up into the ship. They appeared to be bringing the crates from somewhere deep in the tree line. Where Kal couldn’t see. They must have located the remnants of the Broadbill? Or at least the Broadbill’s cargo?
Kal considered. Getting into the ship unseen would be difficult. She needed a better look before she could make a plan.
Kal crept her way over the lip and slid several meters down a sharp slope until she re-entered the undergrowth. There she stayed absolutely still for several long minutes, waiting and listening for something—anything—that would tell her if she’d been spotted.
Satisfied that her presence went undetected, Kal renewed her glacial pace towards the freighter, guessing that if she took it slow, nightfall would come soon. And with it, her best chance to get up one of those ramps.
Chapter 4: Conflux space
The Reserve pilot’s name was Tim Osterhaudt. Young. Clever with his wit. But not cocky. During the voyage out to the Conflux periphery—where the undefined border between civilization and the Occupied Zone lay—Kal got to know him. He was maybe eight years younger, and had not grown up on Earth. A colony boy. He passed through his secondary schooling with good grades, and then picked up a company scholarship from Tremonton. Which had funded him through both his civilian degree, and test pilot school. His nominal rank in the CAF Reserve was Lieutenant. Technically, he outranked Kal. Though Kal made it clear up front that she was in charge, according to their specific orders from Chief Damont.
“No problem,” Tim said, holding up his hands in a placating fashion as they talked quietly in their cabin aboard the starliner Freefall. They had a single porthole which looked out into space. If Kal put her forehead to the transparent fiberflex of the porthole itself, she could look down to where the giant disc of the Blackmatter Drive lay.
Like all interstellar ships, the Freefall was essentially a skyscraper stacked on-end in the center of the Blackmatter Drive: a circular dish nearly as wide as the ship was long. All decks were arrayed perpendicular to the path of flight, so that when under thrust each deck enjoyed something akin to gravity. Though it was the Blackmatter Drive itself which formed the relativistic bubble—allowing the ship to slip beyond the light-speed barrier and travel at trans-light velocities.
The points of starlight outside were smeared, shifting from crowded and blue above to sparse and red at the bottom.
Kal and Tim were dressed in civilian travel jumpsuits customary for migrant technicians bound for one of the sanctioned space stations that serviced the Occupied Zone. They’d come aboard the Freefall with assumed names and false digital travel papers provided by Kal’s boss.
Only Kal was armed. Which didn’t seem to bother Tim much. He thought the entire thing to be a rather daring bit of adventure. He just didn’t like the idea of hurting anyone.
“So why’d you end up in the Reserve if you don’t want to have to fight?” Kal asked.
“My CAF Reserve commission was a prerequisite of my job with Tremonton,” he said, idly tapping his hands on his knees as a gentle stream of music issued from the small speakers at the head of his bunk. He had an unusual fascinating with the classics, for someone his age. His movements kept rhythm with the sound.
“This prototype testing in the Occupied Zone,” Kal said, “it doesn’t seem like you’d be able to avoid fighting there.”
“They’ve got half a dozen pilots working the project,” Tim said. “When I was assigned to go to the Zone, I asked that they put me on the secondary team that’s charged with evaluating data being brought back from the field. All the pilots actually going out beyond the safety zone? Prior combat vets.”
Kal nodded in understanding.
“Did you, uh, fight in the war?” Tim asked hesitantly.
“Yup,” Kal said, laying on her back in her bunk across the cabin—eyes staring straight up at the ceiling.
“Ever have to … uh … well …”
“What?” Kal asked.
“You know … like … shoot somebody?”
Kal closed her eyes and sighed.
“Never ask that question of a veteran, Tim. You should have been in the Reserve long enough to know that. There are a lot of veterans who went Reserve after the war. I am surprised nobody told you the rule.”
“Rule?”
“The last thing anyone who’s seen fighting wants to do, is talk about how they were forced to kill somebody.”
Tim remained silent for many long moments.
“Sorry,” he finally said.
“No problem. I just thought you knew.”
“The Reserve Officer Training Corps teaches a man many things, but some of the tacit stuff doesn’t always translate. Hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“A little. Because the answer is yes.”
Again, a long silence.
“They told me you’re a military policewoman,” Tim said finally. “That you spend a lot of time on cases both explicitly military, as well as tangentially military-related.”
“That’s true.”
“So why aren’t you commissioned?”
“I am commissioned, after a fashion. My job warrants it, I am not appointed like you were.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I often ask myself that same question.”
Several beats later, Tim was chuckling. A pleasant sound. There wasn’t always a lot of laughter in Kal’s line of work.
“If you fought in the war,” Tim asked, “what’s your opinion of the rumor that the Ambit League might renew hostilities?”
“So far as I am concerned,” Kal said, “hostilities never ended. The survivors we left on the Occupied Zone worlds? A lot of them still think we’re at war. The blockade pretty much makes it plain that the Conflux isn’t giving them autonomy or allowing them to rejoin the interstellar economy any time soon.”
“You sympathize with them?” Tim said, raising an eyebrow and sitting up to look at her.
“Hardly,” Kal said. “I just think there’s a bad way to manage the post-war effort and a good way to manage the post-war effort. To my mind, the good way to manage it would be to re-integrate the worlds of the Occupied Zone as soon as possible. Keeping the blockade up indefinitely … just breeds contempt and hostility.”
“But some of those planets are dangerous,” Tim said.
“Correction, sir. Some of the people on those planets are dangerous. I know. I’ve been there. And the longer we treat the good folks in Oz the same way we treat the bad folks in Oz, the more the good folks swing over to the side of the bad folks. Pretty soon we’ve got nothing but bad folks. Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” Tim said, his expression turning serious. “Sounds to me like it’s a no-win situation. The Assembly won’t be changing its policy any time soon. They’re intent on reassuring the electorate that the Ambit League has been permanently destroyed.”
“Right,” Kal said. “Which is why you and I have been called up to perform this mission in the first place.
“Do you think we can really find the missing armor?” Tim asked.
Kal ran her tongue along the inside of a cheek.
Chapter 5: uncharted territory
Hours passed.
Kal stayed low, using the gloaming of night and the blown-down trees to conceal herself. Rumbles of approaching thunder announced that the rain would start once more. Before long a steady clobbering of fat, lens-like drops beat down on the enemy landing site.
Kal relished the cloudburst. The noise and water would help conceal her from any sensors her foes had deployed around their ship.
Kal pushed forward into the drowning darkness—by feel.
Thirty more minutes passed.
Soaked to the bone and nearing exhaustion, Kal at last peeked up from behind a log, only to discover she was looking directly into the belly of the monstrous aerospace freighter—its boarding ramps lit by sodium lamps.
Kal looked nervously in all directions. It was far too quiet for her tastes. No sign of guards? That did not compute. But Kal was committed, and there was no going back, only forward.
Mustering her courage, Kal tugged down on the straps to her shoulder holster, harness, and emergency pack, then crept over the edge of the log and sprinted towards the ship. Kal stopped just as she hit the edge of illumination at the bottom of one ramp. Entering the full light for the first time, her skin crawled—she was totally exposed, and expected to hear voices and gunfire at any moment. But the shouts and bullets never came.
Senses tingling, Kal went up the ramp at a gentle trot.
The freighter’s interior was messy. Narrow corridors sprouted off in several directions, each decorated with exposed pipes, wiring, and ducts. Kal pulled out her P3110 and worked the charging handle, loading a caseless round into the pistol’s firing chamber. With safety off, she kept her finger outside the trigger guard and proceeded deeper into the guts of the ship, step by cautious step.
Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen Page 14
