by P. R. Adams
Weatherford patted Rimes’s shoulder, sending up another explosion of pain.
“I’ve talked to your wife and Agent Kleigshoen. I still want to get your side of the story, of course, but by all accounts, you’ve eliminated a serious problem. I think the government owes you a big thank you, but I don’t recommend you hold your breath waiting for it.”
Rimes smiled in relief.
“The timing couldn’t be much worse. This X-17 thing … it’s not going to make us look good. We need to act on this quickly and aggressively. Corporal Barlowe’s under arrest and cooperating so far. CID has a team working with him to recover the X-17. He doesn’t know where it was stored; that died with Moltke. The bigger problem is dealing with the canisters sold to the genies.”
Rimes nodded, ignoring the pain.
“We’ve reached out to LoDu, played on their honor and all that bullshit. This Kwon fellow was a bit of an embarrassment to them, so they’re offering a little help. At the end of the day, though, it’s going to come down to us. Do you have any idea where they might have stored what they bought?”
Rimes swallowed. “No, sir,” he whispered. “Kwon died before I could get much out of him.”
Weatherford nodded, looking into the distance. “Well, we haven’t got a lot to work with, but we’ll make it count.” He looked down at Rimes, then patted him painfully on the shoulder again. “Martinez was a good soldier. I hope you’ll be able to remember the good about him. I think we can cover up his involvement in this.”
“I appreciate it, sir.”
Weatherford squeezed Rimes’s shoulder. Rimes clenched his teeth against the pain. “Moltke, on the other hand, was lucky he was killed. Hard to believe Martinez got off that shot. The human body is capable of amazing things. Moltke’s family will get nothing. He was a disgrace to the officer corps and to his country.”
He let go of Rimes’s shoulder and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about losing my temper like that. It’s just I’m very disappointed. I thought I knew Moltke better than that.”
Rimes took a breath. “I understand, sir.”
Weatherford moved to pat Rimes’s shoulder but pulled his hand away just in time. “I also wanted to assure you your opportunity for OCS is still intact. Help us wrap up the X-17 situation, and you’ll be on the next bus to Fort Benning. They say you’ll be up on your feet in a week, good as new. They wanted to use you as a case study. I told them no.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rimes said, doing his best to hide the quiver in his voice.
Weatherford started to stand up. “Let me know if you need anything.”
A thought came to Rimes: Perditori’s jumpsuit. His strange accent. “Sir, there is one thing. It might be nothing … I got the sense from Kwon that they might have the X-17 in an orbital station. I didn’t get any details … it may not mean anything.”
Weatherford leaned on the edge of the bed. “Any idea which one?”
Rimes shook his head. His voice was a dry rattle. “He was all-but brain dead when I connected to him. Does the name Perditori mean anything?”
Weatherford considered the name for a moment. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a Perditori, but I’ll pass it along.” He straightened. “For now, you get some sleep. You’ve got a couple of young ladies very anxious to see you.”
Weatherford chuckled quietly. “I remember when I was your age.” He gave Rimes’s shoulder another painful pat, then disappeared through the privacy screen.
Rimes managed a smile. Apparently, Molly hadn’t left him, and Kleigshoen was all right. Moltke was being scapegoated.
But the fact that Barlowe was already in custody troubled Rimes.
Barlowe was a good guy. He had unparalleled computer system skills. And Rimes needed access to those if he wanted to understand what had really happened and why.
The nurse returned with a medication cup. “That was a quick visit. You’ll take two of these now, two tonight with your meals. We’ve had a small problem in the facility with strep lately. At least it’s not something lethal.” He grinned, but the effect was creepy rather than reassuring.
Rimes swallowed the pills with a mighty effort. The nurse left, and Rimes turned his attention back to the news feed—and to the possibility he’d guessed right with Perditori and the X-17.
Makes sense, after all. Kwon had connections to Perditori, and Perditori looks like he lives in an orbital station. Assuming he’s even real. How can I know what’s real when he can affect my thoughts?
Everything about Perditori made it seem very unlikely he lived on-planet, and it seemed unlikely a connection to Kwon could be made from outside the solar system.
Rimes instinctively reached for his earpiece to do more research, and sighed when he realized it had probably been removed when they treated his head wound.
After a moment of familiarizing himself with the remote’s crude interface, he opened a workspace and pulled up a search system.
He worked through the publicly available inventory of orbitals, first filtering out those that were home to the banking cartels. These were the oldest and most established orbitals, and were home to nearly two hundred thousand people. Along with the historical distance the banks maintained from the metacorporations, the idea of one suddenly accepting what would have to be a mysterious cargo simply made no sense. Next, he filtered out anything older than twenty-five years, figuring Perditori would favor more modern facilities, from the time the metacorporations first threatened to move all operations off-planet.
Thirty-four orbital stations remained.
Rimes read through the public descriptions of each one, quickly eliminating half based on size, purpose, ownership, and history. Ranking the remaining seventeen based on what seemed most important—amenities, safety, mobility, storage capacity—gave him an idea of the most likely place for Perditori to hide out.
Rimes pulled up an image of near-space to examine the top five candidates. He rotated the view, frowning. Four of the five were within two hundred kilometers of each other, and all five were associated with major, extra-solar, gateway operations, primarily shipyards.
A quick search on other commercial activity in the area made him sit upright. He fought through the pain and dizziness and refocused on the data.
Fingers shaking anxiously, he worked his way through the first several returns: EEC, HuCorp, MDC, several SunCorps subsidiaries, Virgo, Wang—
There were hundreds of billions—trillions—of dollars tied up in the shipyards, and that just in the manufacturing, refitting, repairing, and scrapping operations. Ore processing from the intra-system mining business added even more.
It was a fortune, even by metacorporation standards.
Space—the orbitals, the colonies—was open, unregulated, the wild.
Tens of thousands of engineers, scientists, and highly trained technicians lived in orbit, willingly accepting the harsh conditions and risks for a contract and the dream of eventual ascendancy to metacorporate employment. No one knew the exact situations, but there were rumors and the occasional refugees. Everything pointed to unimaginable abuses, and the dream of future employment almost always proved a lie.
Rimes copied several links to the workspace and opened a message. He struggled for several seconds to get the data into the message, then struggled more trying to remember Colonel Weatherford’s communication ID. Finally, he settled on sending it to Kleigshoen. After providing a couple of thoughts about the most likely targets, he asked her to forward the information on to Weatherford, and sent the message.
With the communication away, Rimes decided to contact Molly. He suddenly felt a wave of guilt that he’d turned to work before his own wife. He’d been doing that too much of late. He consoled himself with the knowledge that lives were at stake.
It was hard to keep the message to a handful of sentences; there was a lot they needed to discuss.
Molly, I’m awake and, except for some weakness and soreness, ready to come home. If you’ll have me. Ever
ything we’ve ever wanted in life seems to take me away from you, but I promise I’ll do everything I can to spend more time with you once this situation is resolved. I love you.
He sent the message.
He stared at the display for several seconds, hoping she might be waiting at the apartment’s terminal. It was an absurd, self-absorbed thought, and Rimes chided himself for it, but he still stared at the terminal for a full minute longer.
Finally, he closed the communications utility and returned to the newsfeed.
Minutes passed with Rimes drilling down into the latest political dramas playing out across the globe and the colony worlds. As usual, most of the world’s troubles boiled down to the financial ruin wrought by the most recent depression. Energy prices drove up costs and wiped out small businesses, unemployment skyrocketed, and violence inevitably crept up. People just wanted to be able to survive—food, shelter, some semblance of security.
There was so little to be had on a global scale, yet politicians failed to deliver even the simplest, most basic needs.
An hour passed, and Rimes abandoned the newsfeed, his spirits sinking. As he brought up the communication utility, he thought of what it would be like to be an officer. His pay would be more than half again what he was making, and he would be placed in the officer’s retirement system. Within a few years, he’d be making twice what he was earning as a sergeant, sufficient to get a nicer apartment with a room for their child.
The display blinked. A message was waiting for him inside the communications utility. He opened it, excited.
Molly.
It was a video from Kleigshoen. She was dressed in a tight, low-cut, blue top, and her hair was down. Rimes couldn’t help noticing how bright her smile was.
“Hi, Jack. I hope you’re feeling better. I’m staying at the Bradford in Oklahoma City now. Marshall authorized me to work with Army CID on the Moltke case. They really need the help.”
Marshall.
Either he’s got one hell of a pair, or he thinks he’s untouchable now that Moltke’s dead.
“I went through your analysis. You did that off a station in the hospital? You really should consider IB, Jack. You’d be a great fit. Anyway, I really like what you’ve done. I’ve forwarded it on to your colonel with a few thoughts of my own.”
She leaned into the camera and Rimes found himself staring at her cleavage.
“Well, I assume you’re sleeping. Here’s wishing a hasty recovery!”
The image froze.
Hasty recovery? That’s what you had in mind when you recorded that?
Rimes gently shook his head at the message’s implied intimacy. It was just the sort of thing Molly didn’t need to see, but Kleigshoen had sent it anyway.
“Sergeant Rimes?”
Rimes flinched.
A plain-faced woman in hospital greens was holding the privacy screen open, looking angry. “Your wife is here.”
Rimes hastily closed the video. He twisted to see beyond the woman. He could make out the slightest sliver of Molly’s face. She waved at him and smiled stonily.
The woman gave him a severe look. “Five minutes.”
Once the woman was gone, Molly closed the screen and stepped up to Rimes’s bed. Tears were already forming in her eyes. “I didn’t even realize those old messenger things worked.”
“We work with what we have available.” He reached for her hand, took it, squeezed it. His throat burned with each word, but he didn’t care. “Will you have me back?”
Molly wiped away her tears; anger flared in her eyes. Her nails dug into his hand. “You hurt me, Jack.”
He welcomed the pain. “I know.”
“And I don’t know if I can ever trust you fully again.” The nails bit deeper.
“I understand.”
“Do you? We agreed we would have a baby naturally. We agreed I would carry that baby around for nine months. I'm taking on all this risk, all this responsibility, and you what? You hop all over the globe with her?” The nails bit deeper still.
“Molly … I’m not proud of what I did, baby. I cheated on you. I don’t deserve you.”
“You’re damn right you don’t.”
She pulled her nails free and the absence of the pain felt like abandonment. He fumbled for her hand, trying to twist his fingers among hers.
“You have every right to leave.”
That’s it. Now she’s going to go.
Molly pulled her hand away. “I thought about it.”
Rimes’s heart skipped a beat.
She glared at him with renewed intensity. Along with the pain she’d shown earlier, there was hatred in the glare. “I want my own career. I’m not going to be a prisoner with no future but yours.”
“I’ll support your career. You know that.”
“You know I don’t want to be a drunk.”
Rimes nodded. His heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t know what to think. “You won’t be. We’ll get it under control.”
“And I don’t want to raise this child on my own,” Molly said.
He felt tears fill his eyes, a welcome pain and release. “It’s our child. You know that.”
“When this is done, we’re going to talk. The problem isn’t just her … you can’t just do this for the money. Money can’t raise a baby.”
Rimes shook his head.
He watched her eyes, saw the anger softening.
Outside the curtain, the nurse cleared her throat.
Molly said, “I have to go.”
“Thank you, baby,” Rimes said. His throat ached, but he had to finish. “I love you.”
She touched his head near his wound so gently that it didn’t hurt—then she was gone.
Rimes watched the privacy screen for several long seconds, hoping she might return. When it was clear she wasn’t coming back, he lay back and closed his eyes, listening to the background noise.
Finally, he brought up the messenger system again and opened Kleigshoen’s video. He typed in a quick reply, then deleted the video. Kleigshoen replied almost instantly, but Rimes closed the messenger system without reading it.
40
20 March 2164. Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
* * *
The APC interior was cramped, and the air was thick and heavy. Rain banged loudly off the roof, and kit rattled and thumped in the dim light. The team sat in two rows on drab olive seats that squeaked with each lurch and bump. Rimes wiped his brow for the millionth time since entering the vehicle.
There isn’t a personnel carrier built for comfort, but I think they went out of their way to build this one like a tomb. Feels like I’m suffocating.
Rimes looked across at Pasqual, saw him licking his lips. They exchanged a quick thumbs up: a signal going back to their Ranger days.
Bhat smiled, and Orr nodded. Kleigshoen, still deep in IB data updates, sat next to Fawcett, a freckle-faced, wide-eyed transfer who had been on Martinez’s team on the Sundarbans mission.
Wolford’s replacement.
I don’t care what you did, buddy. No one’s going to replace you.
Orr went back to fidgeting with his integrated EVA suit, checking and rechecking its readouts. It was a necessary inconvenience, a complication that worried them all. They’d never done any significant training for space combat. It wasn’t really in their mandate, and they were already an expensive group to fund.
Anxious or not, we’re ready to launch. We’re going to do this.
The engine’s growl ramped up, drowning out the rain.
“You up for this, Sarge?” Pasqual shouted. “Not too pissed off they interrupted your nice hospital vacation?”
“I’m all right. I just gargled with whiskey and glass shards.” Rimes actually was feeling much better, but improved or not, he was going on the mission.
Pasqual leaned forward and punched Rimes’s armor. “This one’s payback,” he shouted.
“Hoo-ah!” the others Commandos shouted.
They’d been spared t
he sordid details of the X-17 theft. As far as the official story went, Moltke had betrayed his unit and his country. Anyone else caught up in the mess was just a good soldier following orders.
However, Rimes could see in Pasqual and Chung’s eyes that they had suspicions.
How are they going to deal with it when the reality sets in? The moment of realization, the new perspective on old memories, the questions of what Wolford and Martinez’s betrayals meant to them. There’s going to be bitterness and anger. I’ve been there. For now, we’ve got our mission, a real target, a real enemy.
The time for forgiveness will come later.
The APC came to a sudden stop, shaking Rimes from his thoughts. He looked across at Kleigshoen. She was engrossed in her earpiece’s display.
Come on, Dana. Stay in this.
The rear hatch dropped, revealing the tarmac. Helicopters and VTOLs crossed the distant horizon, and dark, angular, menacing shapes loomed nearby.
Orbital shuttles.
They all jogged across the tarmac, running for their shuttle. Rimes tried to get a feel for the EVA suit. It was bulky but lighter than he’d expected. The boots were the hardest to adjust to; he felt like he was running in clown shoes. Puddles reflected their approaching forms before boots shattered the images.
As they ran up the shuttle’s ramp, they were joined by another team, this one run by Lopez. Lopez was angular, even taller than Rimes, and rodent-faced. Rimes had worked with him a few times in the past.
They moved single-file through the open airlock and down the aisle splitting the ship’s passenger bay. The interior matched that of the APCs—dark green, dimly lit.
The soldiers exchanged nods, whispered greetings, and bumped fists. Lopez’s team took the seats on the right; Rimes’s team took the seats on the left. Kleigshoen hesitated a moment before settling awkwardly into a seat in Rimes’s row. She shifted as if trying to find a comfortable position before taking her CAWS-5 out of its backpack brace.
Rimes watched Kleigshoen for a moment, worried. She looked up, but seemed to avoid his eyes. Rimes looked around the passenger bay, giving each Commando a quick once-over. He stopped at Lopez.
