Mission Pack 3: Missions 9-12 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  Mom hung her head and sighed. “She’d have been nearly forty by now. If she’d stayed out of that damn war, she’d be a mother for sure.”

  “Ever consider that maybe it’s because you two are a pair of controlling, manipulative shits?” He slammed a fist against the controls of the locked door. “If it wasn’t for Mort, I’d have probably stayed, too.”

  “We had words about that, believe me,” Chuck grumbled. “But who ever won an argument with a wizard?”

  “Me.” Carl drew his blaster. For the barest fraction of an instant, he considered throwing a scare into his father. Instead, he took aim at the door controls. “Safety overrides. Blow it from the inside, and the door releases. Your call.”

  Chuck glowered at Carl. Mom put a hand on his shoulder. He glanced up, and she gave him a nod. “Release door lock.”

  Storming out, Carl found Messerschmidt waiting for him. She took a quick look at the blaster in his hand. “I take it he explained how things are going to be from now on?” When Carl lifted the blaster in Messerschmidt’s direction, careful to avoid actually aiming the business end at her, she just smirked. As he headed for his quarters, she fell into step beside him.

  # # #

  The briefing room has been redecorated while the Mobius was away. Gone were the beer coolers and the dartboard. The plush upholstered seats had been replaced by semi-circular rows of chairs that could be packed more tightly. On the far side of the central holo-projector was a lectern flanked by two flags. One was the ARGO standard, with a simplified orbital chart that looked suspiciously like the Sol system, encircled by Roman laurels. The motto “Strength from Unity” arced around the periphery in small type. Opposite the ARGO flag was one Carl had never seen before. It had a shield with some sort of vulture or crow on it, topped by a knight’s helmet. Around the shield were a number of decorative flourishes with a fleur de lis aesthetic. At the bottom, in a wavy scroll, was written “Ramsey.”

  For once, it wasn’t Carl leading the briefing. He stood off to the side of the room with his arms folded as Chuck took center stage. “Good to see you all this morning. I’d like to welcome back the Mobius crew from their latest daring failure.” There were chuckles around the room as he warmed up the crowd. It was freaking amazing. Couldn’t anyone else see this was a comedian they were listening to? This whole briefing was a punch line to a joke on Carl. “But today we’re honoring a new member of our little family. I’d like to introduce Archimedes Antonopoulos.”

  There were gasps and mutterings throughout the room as Archie entered. He was dressed in a suit and tie but left his robotic hands and head exposed for all to see. Despite rumors that must have done laps around the syndicate by now, most of the attendees hadn’t seen him yet. The robot held up a hand in a static wave as he took up a position by Chuck’s side.

  “Good day, everyone. Before we get down to steak and eggs, I’d like to clear up a few questions that might clutter your thoughts if left unanswered. Firstly, yes, I’m not a goddamn robot. I’m as human as any of you, just trapped in this robotic body. I was born on Earth, attended Harvard, and was married for forty-three years to a wonderful, human woman. Second, I did indeed used to be a wizard. Something about twisting the laws of physics I so utterly rely on has led me to retire from that particular field of endeavor. Third, yes, I do know quite a lot about Harmony Bay. Studying they who rendered me thusly has become a hobby of mine, and it appears I’m taking a crack at going pro. Vengeance had never struck me as a profitable career path, but here’s to hoping.” He gave the audience a thumbs up.

  Chuck pointed to Yomin, standing against the wall with her datalens on and a holo-projector remote in hand. Seemed like she was on the Chuck wagon, like just about everyone else in the syndicate. She cleared her throat and activated the holographic field. “What you’re seeing is a partial map of the Eyndar/ARGO Demilitarized Zone. As part of the cease-fire treaty, major corporations are barred from operating within the region. But the points and lines you’re seeing are our best projection of a Harmony Bay-owned ship named the Bradbury. This is Harmony Bay’s dirty-work vessel. Their route brings them through several nearly deserted systems, avoiding any major colonies and military observation posts along the borders on both sides.”

  With the spinning motion of one hand, Chuck urged her along. “Where are they going then? Minor outposts, illegal space stations, and dead-space rendezvous…es…es—whatever the plural of that is. Anyway, we know who they’re meeting and when at no fewer than twenty-seven points along their sweep of this region.”

  The listeners were paying attention. Their gazes fixated on the holographic map as Yomin explained what the individual transactions involved, as best she and Archie had been able to piece together. Among the crowd, Carl spotted Jaxon and Rachel sitting side by side. Esper was in the front row, a studious frown painted across her forehead. A few rows from the back, Amy kept glancing back at Carl. He couldn’t find Roddy, but that wasn’t too big a concern, considering how short he was compared to everyone else. Mort was nowhere to be found.

  “Well, boys and girls,” Chuck said, taking center stage from Yomin once her rundown was complete. “What do you think? Do you know how we turn this knowledge into cold, hard terras?”

  Voices shouted from the audience.

  “We rob them and sell to Harmony Bay ourselves.”

  “No, we wait for the deal and steal the money.”

  “We spoof comm IDs and reroute the goods and the money both to us.” This last one was obviously in Carl’s line of thinking.

  “None of the above,” Chuck cut in as more guesses poured in. “We get to the contacts before Harmony Bay and blackmail them to keep us quiet. None of these enterprises out here work in the light of a shining star. We threaten to peel back the cloaking shields on their whole operation if we don’t get a cut. We offer them assurances and help shore up their data security so they feel like they’re getting something for their money.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just kill whoever we send to make the offer?” someone asked.

  “Good question. You see, if we were small-time operators, they just might. But we’re not a single ship. We’re not a lone crew. Whoever’s out there has the backing of Carl Ramsey and his syndicate.” Several heads turned in Carl’s direction, and he obliged with a knowing nod. Whatever Chuck was up to, it was clear that Carl wasn’t going to get much of anywhere by antagonizing him in front of everyone. If Mort had been there, maybe. Mort was good friends with Chuck, after all, but he wasn’t a fan of being bullshitted. If Carl tried to duke it out verbally in front of everyone, he’d get hauled away under the “he’s been under a lot of stress” pretense.

  Chuck continued on, his voice growing more eager and confident as the syndicate membership lapped up his drivel. “We’ll be sending out five ships. The Knightsbridge will be heading to—”

  “Excuse me,” Carl interrupted with a raised hand. “When the hell did we get more ships?”

  “You rushed off last night before I had a chance to fill you in on all the latest news. We bought them fair and square. Good condition. Jean Niang looked them over personally. They’re all mission-ready after minor touch-up work.”

  “How’d we pay for them?” Carl wasn’t liking where he thought this was heading. “You take out a loan?”

  Chuck laughed off the idea. “A less circumspect man might have been tempted to ask his old buddy Don Rucker for a loan. But instead I just sold him some of the classified gizmos we had lying around here collecting mold. Hell, some of it was even software, so we didn’t even lose out. Win win.”

  “You…” Carl said, pointing to Chuck. “Sold classified Earth Navy tech…” He spread his hands to indicate the Odysseus in general. “To Don… RUCKER?” He pointed upward and off in some alternate direction, which may or may not have been within a billion light-years of Mars.

  Chuck clapped his hands sharply. He raised his voice to make it clear he was done talking solely with Carl. “Back to the
business at hand. The Knightsbridge is off to Sieba IV. The Apollo will be going to the unsanctioned space station on the edge of the Tellemon system. The Mobius will be taking assignments at Cheiron II, the asteroid miners in the Champlain Belt, and a stuunji refugee colony on New Garrelon.” With a shit-eating grin, Chuck added, “Gotta love wizards for star-drives. Am I right?” In Mort’s absence, he shot a wink at Esper, who remained impassive.

  Carl took the news in stride. He waited against the back wall as the syndicate rank and file filtered out of the briefing room. The whole while, Chuck waited at the lectern, making small talk with Trisha Akerman. Presumably, he was going to wait for a little privacy before digging in his heels to continue last night’s argument over syndicate operations and Carl’s personal involvement.

  Messerschmidt was waiting a discreet distance away. Her past duties in the marines had obviously included personal security because she had the perfect balance between letting Carl know she was there and not being in the way of anything he wanted to do in the briefing room, including pretending that he was the only one there. Pushing off from the wall, Carl approached her. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re taking this better than I thought,” she said, and fell into step beside him.

  “I learned a long time ago not to argue with Chuck Ramsey.”

  Arguing was for suckers, especially when the room was stacked against you. No, the best way to deal with Chuck Ramsey was to cut him out of the process entirely.

  # # #

  Mort strolled the forest path on his way to Moss Glen. The air was crisp and cool, smelling of autumn leaves. A late afternoon sun poked dappled holes through the canopy of red, orange, and yellow overhead. His footsteps crunched along the trail, snapping the occasional twig. The forest wasn’t especially large, nor particularly intimidating, yet no one came here but him. Even the tiny minority of his mental creations that retained the spark of their original humanity never followed him or explored the little grove at the edge of Mortania.

  Even false fresh air felt good in Mort’s lungs. It was the sort of day he couldn’t get enough of on his vacations to Peractorum. Not a whiff of science anywhere. It cleaned him from the inside out and left him invigorated. If only it worked for the mind as well, because that was the most in need of a solid, elbow-grease cleansing right about now.

  Up ahead, there was a clearing, fifty feet across and sporting a manicured lawn of brilliant green grass. Perched in the center was a storybook cottage with a stone chimney that trailed a wisp of wood smoke into the air. There was a path that led from the forest trail to the front door, marked by an archipelago of smooth roundish flagstones. Mort strode along them, offering a curt nod of greeting to a pair of knee-high ceramic figurines posed at the edge of a flower bed.

  Reaching the end of the path, Mort knocked on a rustic wooden door with no handle on the outside. “Hello,” he called out.

  “Hello, yourself,” a muffled voice hollered back from within. “I know you’re there. You know I’m in here. Just let yourself in. It’s not like you don’t own the place.”

  Mort gave the door a shove, and after sticking briefly, it swung inward. The interior of the cottage was a small barony. Easily five times the size the exterior would have suggested, it had a winding pair of spiral staircases that led to an upper level that could not have possibly fit beneath the thatched roof—which was a vaulted dome from this side. A fireplace roared at one end of the foyer, with a Persian throw rug before it. The fire was flanked by two towering high-backed chairs upholstered in velvet. In one of those chairs, there was a man.

  Elderly by appearance, the eyes sunk into his crag-lined face were sharp as nails. A piercing, deep blue, they were the only hint of real color about his person. The rest of him consisted of pasty gray skin and waxen yellow hair that didn’t deserve to be called blond. His outfit was medieval in the same sense that all Convocation formal wear was outdated. Baggy charcoal sleeves enveloped spindly arms ending in knobby-knuckled fingers that conspired to clasp a steaming mug. With a twitch of a finger, a matching mug appeared in the air before Mort, wafting an aroma of ginseng.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” Mort said as he took custody of the beverage.

  Nebuchadnezzar The Brown harrumphed and took a sip of his tea. “I’ve had time on my hands and little else to do with it.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been preoccupied of late.”

  “That excuse flies as well as your average penguin,” Nebuchadnezzar replied. He gestured to the chair opposite him. “Sit, before you flap your little flipper wings and fly off again. So, tell me, what brings you out to my little hamlet?”

  Mort slumped into the sitting chair with a sigh. “Ramseys.”

  “Any in particular? Last you spoke of them, there had been two of them wandering around in here.”

  “The Lloyd Incident has been cleared up. Rhiannon’s off on her own, singing or whatever. No, this time it’s the two older boys: Carl and Chuck.”

  Nebuchadnezzar grinned and sat up straighter in his chair. “Oh, haven’t heard about Charles in ages. I’d begun to worry the old boy had passed on by now.” The two men had never met, but Mort had plied his grandfather with stories of Chuck Ramsey and their adventures aboard the Radiocity since not long after he’d taken up residence in Mort’s skull.

  “Well, Carl started up this criminal syndicate of sorts…”

  “Very enterprising of him.”

  “And Chuck got wind of it and showed up out of the garden bushes to get in on the action…”

  “Must have been proud.”

  “Carl being Carl, he left things to fend for themselves while we went off searching for fame, glory, and hopefully enough money to pay all these kindly young criminals we’d just hired…”

  “All sounding sensible thus far.”

  Mort scratched at his stubble even though, this being his imagination, it wasn’t itching. “See? That’s the problem. It wasn’t sensible at all. Chuck’s gone and played musical chairs with the orchestra. Set Carl up as a figurehead. Now he won’t let Carl off the planet for the sake of his own safety…”

  Nebuchadnezzar nodded sagely. “The curse of important men.”

  “But I know Carl. He’s got the soul of a wanted fugitive and the criminal record to match. He sits still for the length of a holovid, maybe two if there’s someone to get him fresh beers from the fridge. Coop him up in one spot too long, he’s liable to explode.”

  “I presume you mean figuratively.”

  “Presume all you like, but I don’t fancy the idea of those two at each other’s throats. And I’m sure that’s the route it’ll take if left to fester. Chuck’s got a silver tongue and a way with people. But Carl’s devious and slicker than shaving foam.”

  “Jones & Jensin?”

  “No, the PolyMade brand that doesn’t leave your whiskers rough by dinnertime. You see, Chuck did all this behind Carl’s back. It was easy for him, roping navy officers who were adrift morally. But give Carl long enough to dig in his heels, and Chuck’s liable to find himself delivered to a senility colony via Astral Parcel Service.”

  “Quite the pickle.”

  “That’s all you’ve got to say? ‘Quite the pickle?’ Merlin’s beard, Grandpa, what are you good for?”

  Nebuchadnezzar slurped the last bit of his tea and with a waggle of fingers, refilled it with another steaming cupful. “Want advice, then, is that it? Well, just suck their brains out of their skulls and give them little fiefdoms on opposite ends of the realm. Problem solved.”

  “Neither of them is in imminent danger of dying.”

  “Hmph. Just a few decades away for one. A couple extra for the other. What’s that in here? A few thousand years? They’d be better off. Jehoshaphat’s jewels, boy! If I’d known I could get a few extra centuries away from the rheumatoid and incontinence, I’d have made you read that book ages ago.”

  Mort glowered at his grandfather. Nebuchadnezzar slouched back in hi
s seat with a weak smile.

  Footsteps coming down the stairs drew Mort’s attention. “What’s the matter down here? You boys fighting?” Mort’s grandmother asked.

  She looked younger than Mort remembered her—younger than she’d been the day he was born. He only knew her at all by Nebuchadnezzar’s interactions with her. Unlike so many of the false personae in Mortania, she was one of the only ones Mort hadn’t created himself. In an abstract, objective way, he knew she was lovely. She had golden hair in ringlets and a gently curving figure. The corners of her crimson lips were upturned in an ever-present smile. Her bright green eyes seemed to laugh despite her chiding. There was no way in heaven or hell that Isadora von Humboldt-Brown had really looked like that. If she had, she’d have been hunted down as some sort of seductress demon.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Izzie. Mordecai’s just having some mortal problems.”

  Isadora came by and patted Mort on the cheek. “Oh, it’ll blow over soon enough.”

  “Over’s not the direction I’m worried about. It’s blowing up that’s the danger here.” Mort set his cup down on a side table that he imagined into being for that very purpose. “I shouldn’t have come. Sorry to bother you, Grandma, Grandpa.”

  Nebuchadnezzar sprang to his feet with a spryness at odds with his ancient appearance. “No, no! No bother at all. Sorry, if I’m not more sympathetic, but that real world flotsam just seems so trivial now. It creeps by at the pace of a snail with gout and a bad back. And nothing ever really happens out there that’s new or exciting. It’s the same old, same old, wrapped up in scientific plastics and with a new slogan scrawled across the front.”

  There was something profound beneath the surface of that claptrap. But Mort was enough of an orator himself to see through the cracks in such rhetoric. “On a grand scale, perhaps. But person by person, there’s plenty to care about. And honestly, keeping those two Ramsey boys from doing one another permanent harm is a long ways up my priority flagpole. That said, I think I found a nugget of an idea in one of your earlier ramblings. Thanks for the tea. It was delicious.”