Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3)

by S. H. Jucha

  “You might as well go in, Admiral,” Étienne said. “After all, it is for you.”

  As if in invitation, Andrea’s cabin door slid open, and Alex walked into her salon. His people stood arranged on either side of a vid screen bearing the silhouette of the Sleuth, and Étienne crossed over to join them. Determined faces regarded him. He hadn’t interrupted their meeting. They had been waiting for him.

  “I believe I will wait for someone else to start this conversation,” Alex said.

  “Admiral,” Julien’s voice emanated from the vid monitor, “I have shared my research into the Assembly members with those assembled here and relayed your intention to meet with Assemblyman Eugene Pritchard planetside.”

  “Respectfully, Admiral, how did you intend to travel to this meeting tomorrow?” Tatia asked.

  “I was going to take a station shuttle with Étienne,” Alex replied.

  It appeared as if everyone was about to say something at once, but Renée raised her hand and signaled by implant, forestalling any comments. “Speaking as your Co-Leader in this House, Admiral, that is unacceptable.”

  “Renée, perhaps we should discuss this privately,” Alex replied.

  “That is also unacceptable, Admiral,” Renée said.

  Alex looked at those in front of him. The resolute look in everyone’s eyes was palpable. Julien chimed in privately with,

  “I take it you people have come up with an alternate suggestion,” Alex said, shrugging his shoulders in acquiescence.

  -7-

  Immediately after morning meal, Alex found himself in very different company than he had planned for his trip planetside. He boarded the Outward Bound with Renée, the twins, Tomas, Tatia, and twelve crew members with plasma rifles. Most of the crew members were ex-TSF troopers, who had specialized as techs or engineers during their service. In addition to Alex’s entourage, Sheila launched eight Daggers from the Money Maker that she divided into two flights of four each.

  During the meeting in Andrea’s cabin, Alex had argued the importance of a low-key visit with Assemblyman Pritchard, but the group’s counter arguments had made sense to him.

  Tatia had pounded home their point with a question to Alex. “Admiral,” she had asked, “how many people do you think are paid to watch and report on you … station employees, comm traffic workers, shuttle pilots and their crew, ground crew, and others?”

  Andrea had added, “Admiral, you are focused on returning to Libre and protecting the entire human race. Well, we are focused on protecting you so that you can do just that.”

  Alex had accepted their reasoning and had given in. It was widely believed that President McMorris had been murdered, and the perpetrators were powerful people who had their eyes on a fortune in Méridien technology. Those same people would love an opportunity to cause an accident for a visiting Admiral.

  Their warnings proved to be prophetic. When Captain Manet broke through the upper atmosphere on approach to Prima’s shuttle terminal, two Strikers rose up from Barren Island and headed toward them. Immediately one flight of four Daggers streaked down and intercepted the two fighters, chasing them back to Barren Island.

  When the Outward Bound landed, two hover-cars full of TSF troopers pulled onto the runway’s apron. Edouard, in the pilot’s seat, was the first to spot the TSF vehicles and signaled Tatia. As the shuttle came to a halt, Alex rose up, but Tatia signaled him to remain seated. Her expression brooked no arguments, so Alex sat back down. The flight crew, Lyle and Zeke, opened the hatch and extended the gangway.

  Out of the vehicles stepped a TSF Captain and seven troopers with sidearms. They advanced on the shuttle, and Tatia and her twelve plasma-rifle-toting crew members tromped down the gangway ramp in double time. The two groups came face-to-face. While they stood frozen, their commanders eyeing one another, Alex’s voice could be clearly heard to say, “Captain, how good of you to greet me, but as you can see, I don’t need an escort. I’ve brought one of my own.”

  “Admiral, I am TSF Captain Peters, and I’m instructed to escort you to Government House … immediately,” the Captain replied.

  “Your pardon, Captain. I appreciate the offer of hospitality, but I have an important appointment. Please tell whoever waits for me at Government House that I will consider their request for an appointment at a later time.”

  Captain Peters hesitated. The Admiral’s response was not one he had anticipated. While he considered his next option, he watched the Admiral’s escort move like a machine. They stepped out in precision, charged their plasma rifles, and brought them to port arms. The way they moved, precise and automated, frightened him and his troopers. That these were fellow New Terrans didn’t occur to them.

  “Captain, if you will excuse us?” Alex asked in a deep and commanding voice.

  Captain Peters recognized when he was over his head. At heart, he was a good man who was attempting to execute unsavory orders. He came to his senses, snapped to attention, and delivered the Admiral a sharp salute. When his salute was returned, he said, “Good fortune, Admiral.”

  Alex replied, “Captain, if you find yourself in trouble over this, comm General Gonzalez and explain the situation. Tell her I asked you to call.”

  As the Admiral and his entourage passed around Peters and his troopers, the Captain mumbled to no one in particular, “Thank you, Sir.”

  Alex sent privately to Tatia.

  Tatia replied.

  Alex smiled to himself. Tatia had found her implant’s true calling. Games were fine, but if implants could be a tool of offense or defense, then she was an adopter.

  On the apron, a civilian transport vehicle capable of carrying the entire group had settled to the ground, and the driver stood next to his vehicle, smiling in anticipation of the day’s earnings. Before Alex’s group reached the transport, a TSF troop transport pulled up between them and the civilian transport.

  Tatia, said on open comm to the group.

  While Alex’s people were boarding the TSF troop transport, Tatia walked around to the civilian transport and asked the driver for his reader. In moments, she returned it. His reader showed a day’s service paid with a handsome tip.

  “You have one stop to make today, driver,” Tatia said, “and then you’re done for the day. Drive from here to the T-2 Station. Wait five hours and then drive back to your transport terminal. Understood?”

  “As you request, Commander. It will be done,” the civilian driver replied.

  As Tatia boarded the TSF transport, she spoke briefly to the Sergeant at the wheel, who nodded his understanding before she took a seat in front of the Admiral.

  “I hope I was generous with the driver’s tip, Commander,” Alex said. During Andrea’s meeting, he had been told the group would need access to funds, and Alex had given permission to Julien to transfer whatever they needed. It occurred to him that the faster he got off New Terra, the better it would be for his bank account. Minister Drake had paid the original purchase price of his g-sling program into his account. The new Minister had not made the first-year installment payment. The credits from the program’s purchase would have lasted him a lifetime if he was frugal. Paying for a quarter-million refugees and servicing a flotilla of starships—not so long.

  “You have always been generous, Admiral,” Tatia replied, turning around to face Alex, a mischievous glint in her eye.

  The transport remained quiet for the ride to the outskirts of Prima. Tatia’s twelve troopers had surrounded their charges while ten TSF Sergeants and Corporals sat quietly in the back. The troopers had been under Major Tachenko’s command at one time or another. When she contacted two of them for a favor, the senior enlisted personnel had arranged a “troop exercise” fo
r the day. TSF transports were by design unable to be tracked by any entities but TSF command. It was the reason that Tatia had set up a civilian transport as a decoy and had redirected her people to the troop transport at the last moment.

  * * *

  The transport turned off the main roadway on to a well-laid gravel track half an hour’s travel outside of Prima. The hover jets sent up small cloud of dusts as the transport wound deep into the woods, eventually arriving at a centuries-old two-story lodge, which occupied a large expanse of the wooded hillside.

  As the transport settled down beside a collection of hover-cars, Tatia stood up and signaled the Sergeant behind the wheel. In response, he and the ten TSF troopers filed off the transport and spread out around the lodge’s grounds. Then Tatia’s troopers followed suit and created a corridor from the transport to the four-meter-wide stone steps of the lodge. When Tatia was satisfied, she signaled Alex and the remaining people, who left the transport for the lodge.

  Alex noted that Étienne and Alain closely shadowed both him and Renée. For the first time in nearly a year that Alex could recall, the twins wore stun guns on their hips and some sort of small device attached to their harness. He was about to ask Étienne about it when they gained the lodge’s porch, and Assemblyman Eugene Pritchard stepped spritely through the lodge’s wide double doors.

  “Admiral, I’m so pleased you arranged this meeting. Please come this way. Our people are waiting in the dining hall.”

  Through Julien’s research, over thirty Assembly Representatives had been identified as outspoken critics of President pro tem Clayton Downing. After Alex set the meeting location with Assemblyman Pritchard, requesting a large out-of-the-way venue, he had invited the other Representatives to attend. Most had accepted. From the moment contact had been made, the SADEs had monitored the communications of the invited to ensure that the opposition wasn’t informed of the meeting.

  In the center of the Representatives sat ex-General Maria Gonzalez and the other two members of the McMorris Team, ex-Ministers William Drake and Darryl Jaya. The assembled New Terrans paused to take in the flotilla’s personnel, resplendent in dark blue Méridien uniforms tastefully adorned with gold stars of rank, House patch, and a Leader’s or ship’s patch.

  The quiet was broken when Renée spotted Maria. A soft cry of joy escaped Renée’s lips as she threaded the tables with lightning speed. Maria rose up to greet Renée, a huge grin spreading across her face. It was fortunate that Maria was a New Terran. Her heavy-world body absorbed the impact of Renée as she threw herself into Maria’s arms.

  What has become of my quiet, non-demonstrative Méridien? Alex thought.

  Maria’s smile threatened to overtake her face, as did Renée’s, and the women were slow to untangle themselves from each other. Their embrace did much to lower the tension in the room, reminding everyone of the bond the New Terrans and Méridiens had first formed.

  “Well, Admiral, I don’t believe introductions are necessary. It seems relationships are alive and well,” Assemblyman Pritchard quipped, indicating the two women who now faced the assembly with smiles and arms wrapped around each other’s waist. “If you will, Admiral,” Eugene said, indicating the front of the room. “You did call the meeting.”

  Alex and Étienne stepped to the front of the room. Étienne carried the same case Alex had once carried to the Assembly, which contained a portable holo-vid. As Alex set it up, he said to the group, “I believe most of you have witnessed one of these in action before.” It drew a round of smiles and chuckles from the Assembly Representatives. “Before I begin, let me say, from all of my people, how saddened we are by the news of President McMorris’ death. He was a fine man who will be missed.”

  Alex paused for a moment, remembering the powerful and good-hearted leader he had left behind. But, recalling the man who took his place, his demeanor changed. The sad face of the explorer-tug Captain was replaced with that of the flotilla’s Admiral. On Étienne’s signal, Alex said, “This presentation, narrated by Julien, has been assembled from the research of three of our SADEs. I apologize for the length of the presentation, and I beg your patience, but I would not expect this august body to act without sufficient proof of what has been uncovered and to respond as I expect you must.” He signaled the holo-vid’s start.

  Julien began with the theft of the T-1 database and his tracking of the people and credits that had hired the Frazier brothers, who had perpetrated the theft. When the credit trail ended at Samuel Hunsader’s doorstep, the dots did not need to be connected for this audience. The Assembly knew whom the Purity Ores’ CEO supported. When the audience learned that the information had been sent to President McMorris on the exit of the Rêveur from the system, even those who had believed the President had died in an accident began to doubt those thoughts.

  The next batch of information was an analysis of the financial records of many of New Terra’s largest companies, especially those engaged by the Ministry of Space Exploration. As the enormous profits accumulated within the companies, Julien correlated their financial windfall with the implementation of Méridien technology. The advanced technology had been approved by the Assembly to be carefully managed through government channels to benefit the populace. Instead the technology was being distributed to companies that were making the public pay for its implementation through the companies’ service charges to the government and public.

  “You will note, Sers, the approval for these services has been granted by the Minister of Space Exploration. The cost of your FTL stations throughout the system totaled more than 3.65 billion credits—funds all charged by companies to your government. At this time, Méridien technology is entirely in the hands of your companies.”

  There was more to the presentation, but Alex ended it due to the furor in the room. William Drake, the ex-Minister of Space Exploration and one of the key people who had developed the New Terran-Méridien Pact, had been the first on his feet, yelling at the holo-vid in anger as if such an act would be transmitted to the man who now held his ministerial chair.

  While most of the Assembly Representatives were now on their feet in fierce discussions with one another, Alex was watching Maria. She had pulled Drake back down to join her and Jaya in discussion. Their heads were close together. At one point, Maria said something to the two men, and they all swung their heads to look at him. Alex figured that was his cue to move the meeting on to the next point in his agenda.

  “Sers,” Alex announced loudly, gaining the room’s attention. “For several reasons, I do not wish to share my next information with you through your readers. It could compromise your safety. We will need a more appropriate time to share this with a broader audience.”

  “And what is that broader audience and when would that be?” Will Drake asked.

  “The audience would be the public at large,” Alex replied. “The dispersal of this information should give the Assembly all the reason it needs to vote for a new President pro tem. As to the timing, it will be soon.”

  “But, Admiral, without a suitable candidate, the Assembly might be locked in session forever while every faction puts forth their nominee,” said an elderly Assembly woman.

  Alex quickly matched her face to a bio of the Representatives he had downloaded, and then said, “I quite agree with you, Assemblywoman Lorne. I have a candidate in mind and have suggested they put their name forth. However, at this time, I have not heard back from that individual. I believe that to be a good sign. Someone anxious to wield the power of the presidency is a dangerous person.” Alex was careful to not look in Maria’s direction, but from the corner of his eye, he could see Drake and Jaya staring at her.

  “It would help us, Admiral, to know the name of your candidate,” Nemea Lorne said. “I would hope it’s not someone on your staff.”

  Alex stood quietly in front of the group. The longer he was quiet, the more anxious the Representatives became, fearing it was a member of his group he was nominating. Several were about
to protest their indignation, probably bringing the meeting to a swift ending, when Maria stood up and Will Drake loudly cleared his voice to swing heads in their direction.

  “The Admiral is referring to me,” Maria said. “I admit I thought it was hubris on his part that he should suggest a new President pro tem candidate. But without his efforts, would we even know the silver ships existed? More than likely, at some time in the future, we would be like one of the Confederation colonies suddenly concerned at this giant ship entering our system. We would probably attempt to communicate with them right up until the moment they began burning our populace to ashes.” Maria paused to gather her thoughts. She straightened her shoulders, assuming a TSF officer’s posture. “President McMorris had a plan to secure the safety of our system with Méridien technology. Instead we see it being used to fatten the bank accounts of our richest companies. If our people knew the truth, they would be outraged as many of us are here today. And I have met Julien and worked with him. I do not doubt the veracity of this information.” Maria paused again, taking time to regard the faces in the room. Something she saw encouraged her. She looked at Alex and said, “So I would be proud to be the Admiral’s candidate and submit my name to the Assembly if they reelect a President pro tem.

  Maria hadn’t any idea of the reception her announcement was going to receive. She had braced herself for a backlash of negativity. What she received was a roar of approval and a sudden mob of handshakes, pats on the back, and statements of congratulations. Through the crush of well-wishers, she looked to the front and saw Alex looking back at her, a crooked grin on his face. She gave him a resigned smile in return. It appears neither of us appreciates being thrust into the world of politics, she thought.

  Alex shared several last thoughts with the group before he left the meeting. The first was that he hoped they would keep private what they learned today. Release of the information, he told them, had to be properly timed. Second, once the information was released, they needed a plan to deal with those companies that controlled the Méridien technology. Third, once Maria was elected, he would need the T-Stations up and running quickly to supply his ships.