by Rolf Nelson
A pair of police, one with senior sergeant stripes carrying a rifle at the ready across his chest, the other with a rookie officer pip, step next to Helton’s booth, frowning at their empty hands with no ID card. The sergeant’s eyes narrow as he looked at them more closely, his body tensing, right hand fingering the selector switch of his bullet launcher. The rookie held out the scanner to Kaminski, imaging his face and upturned palms carefully. Unlike the others they have checked, data doesn’t appear almost immediately. After a long pause, some information finally displays. The rookie held it up for the sergeant to see, who reads it and frowned more deeply, then shifts his grip slightly before he sniffs uncertainly. “ID or work permit, Mr.… Alias Smith?”
Kaminski shrugged. “Got stolen.”
“Business here?”
“Came looking for a job. A friend said there were opportunities here.”
“Occupation?”
“I’m flexible.”
“No work permit?”
“Not yet.”
The sergeant taps the fingers of on the weapon’s forestock. His expression said he doesn’t believe it, but the database doesn’t offer up any flags at all. But everyone has some sort of flag, which was a flag in itself. “ like you just found a job, Mr. Smith.” He nodded toward Helton, who is promptly scanned by the rookie. Another similar delay before data shows up. “Mr. Jones…. ID?”
“Same pickpocket, I’d guess. Came looking for work.”
The police sergeant sucks his teeth a moment or two, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Smith… and Jedidiah Jones. You look familiar, but the computer says nothing. Nothing. It always has something. You look a lot like two reported criminals we BOLOed and were reported here. I think…. You both just found jobs. We’ll haul you in with the rest, see if higher up can find any flags on your IDs.”
“Sure you won’t get yelled at for false arrest, sergeant?” Helton asked in a neutral tone.
“Are you resisting arrest?”
Keeping his word calm and face blank Helton responds carefully. “No, just asking for clarification.”
“Good. Then that’s not my problem. Something isn’t right, but I’ll let the deck-jockeys figure out what while you sit in detention awaiting transfer to a conscript company.” He sneers at them. “Have fun. I hear there’s a war on.” He signaled for another officer to come and take them into custody.
After being cuffed they were led to a lineup with three other men picked up in the sweep, all looking dejected or desperate. The sweep quickly wrapped up, and as they were lead out the doorway they see Sharon standing outside, looking nervously at the line of riot-armored police and prisoners. When she saw them her hand covered her mouth as she stifled a surprised cry of shock. The Lieutenant saw her and shook his head. “Not who you thought they were, ma’am, so no reward, but no work permits, so they’ll help fill quota. They look healthy so I’m sure they’ll make fine conscripts for the war effort.”
They are hustled down the sidewalk past her, wearing blank expressions and not looking her direction. As they pass, she pleaded with them quickly, tears in her voice, before being pushed back by an officer. “I’m so sorry, Helton, but you need serious help. These people, these criminals you’ve fallen in with-”
“Move back, lady, unless you want to join them!” The cop gives her a none-too-gentle shove back while keeping the line moving.
The two maintained their silence, assuming there were cameras and microphones which could pick up any indiscreet words or communications. They were loaded into a paddy wagon, where the five joined three others from earlier in the sweep. While Helton keenly observed the various people and their actions, Kaminski glared at one guy to make him move, then stretched out with his feet near Helton’s, leaned back, closed his eyes, and appeared to fall fast asleep. Being the largest man in the wagon by a significant margin, nobody dared to try and tell him to move out of their way, making Helton smile at the low-key way of exerting dominance.
Another stop was made to pick up more “volunteers,” among them two drunken, large, smelly, and very belligerent men. The two had to be forced in through the paddy wagon door by a small crowd of riot-armored officers, and once in they kept screaming and kicking at the door for a a couple of minutes. Eventually they turned around and glowered, then swore at their new cell-mates, threatening and kicking at those near the door to make them move. The eleven others with Helton and Kaminski were much more of a white-collar type, cowering from the two aggressively hostile men. The larger of the two hawked up a huge wad of phlegm and spat on the floor while staring around at the down-turned faces surrounding him. When he saw Helton’s impassive face looking at him directly, and Kaminski apparently asleep he snarled, before taking a double-take at the big man and taking a step toward him. “Know you. I seen you before.” He swept his handcuffed hands back to make a two-handed sideways swing at Kaminski’s head, aiming to knock it into the hard corner wall. Helton nudged Kam’s feet with a pair of short taps, not easily seen in the poor lighting, but clearly felt.
Kaminski’s eyes were slitted open, and he saw the clumsy drunken strike coming. His body looked relaxed, but he was ready. His own cuffed hands rose to catch and redirect the drunk’s into the steel wall by his head, he twisted them so they hit hard and at a very bad angle, breaking bones. With a further pull and twist he brought the shattered wrists back over and around, levering himself to his feet while pulling the drunk’s head down toward the bench the big sergeant was “relaxing” on, smashing the drunk’s face on the edge while kicking his feet out. Now on his feet, Kaminski lifted the drunk’s hands sharply, rolling him on his side while bringing his knee sharply forward into the face turned his way, snapping it back hard. In the tight confines of the wagon he aimed a swift side-kick into the groin of the second drunk before giving an elbow-strike to the first man’s kidney. A few more sharp knees and a throw that smashed the second man’s head into the steel wall and they are both out cold, messed up badly with broken bones, concussions, and dislocated joints. Kaminski almost casually shoved the largest motionless body away from the corner and sat back down in his former position, eyes closed, feet propped up on the other body lying in the middle of the floor. The back door opened up, causing one of the now beaten, bloodied, and silent big drunks to slump out through it, into the arms of a pair of riot cops wondering what happened. They caught the man, then shoved him back in, looking about the wagon faces showing surprise and suspicion.
“They slipped,” Helton said blandly. The others in the wagon stared silently and wide-eyed at the two of them. The cops looked at the blood spatters around the wagon walls and Kaminski’s pants, the demeanor of the paddy wagon occupants, and the motionless bodies they had with great difficulty forced in so recently.
One of them nodded, expression uncertain. The other smiled sardonically, understanding the gist of what happened. “Must have. Guess we should put up a caution sign.” He closed the door firmly, the click of its lock clear in the silent wagon.
“Well, Mr. Smith…. Any good ideas?” Helton asked Kaminski after they were lead to a large holding cell already holding two dozen others in various states of shock, dejection, anger… and anticipation.
Kaminski shrugged his shoulders slightly, looked around the cell, rapidly evaluating the residents. Mostly fish, three sharks he decided. The inert bodies of the two drunks were drug in behind them and propped against a wall. Spotting a horizontal bar to one side, closer to the trio of toughs, “Smith” smiled and nodded. Stepping over to the unconscious and bloody punks, he squatted down to examine them, nodding slight to acknowledge the guards dropping them off, subtly indicating it was his handiwork. Apparently satisfied they’d be out a while, he walked the few steps to the bar. Hopping lightly up he grabbed it, doing a quick set of chin-ups, then dropping one arm he did a couple one-armed. Switching arms he causally did three more. With his feet back on the floor, he did a quick stretch-and-flex, apparently ignoring the three sharks as
they observed him. After giving them a brief, dismissive glance he walked over to Helton. Nearly every eye in the place was on him. Talking confidentially but without sounding arrogant, Kaminski acknowledged Helton with a curt “We can make this work, Mr. Jones,” before he sat down and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, comfortably ignoring the crowd around them. All eyes turned to Helton.
He scanned the crowd, then pointed to the man sitting closest. Helton held his hand out flat, blade-like, directing more than accusing. “You. Name, profession, official reason for incarceration?” he asked, firmly but without hostility, a calm command voice as close an imitation of the First Sergeant’s he could muster, causing a slight smile to appear, unnoticed, on Kaminski’s face.
“Peter Chan, sanitation tech, expired work certification,” the man mumbles back, scared.
Helton chuckles slightly and made a relaxed grin. “No need to mumble. We’re all in the same tank. Likely headed for the same conscript company. Best chance of survival is to work together as a team. Can’t make a team if I don’t know what I have to work with.”
One of the three rough-looking dudes in the corner stared at him with ill-concealed dislike. “Who died and put you in charge?” he demanded.
“Volunteering?” Helton asked, quiet but challenging, hooking his thumb at the two battered and unconscious bodies. “Survival. Experience. Got a mission to complete, and you can ride along and have a chance, or die at first contact.” The three stared back, uncertain. “Name, profession, charge?”
The oldest of the three, scraggly graying hair in a ponytail and faded gang symbols on his vest makes a face, thought about his response a moment while the other two look back and forth between them, then spoke up. “Kell. Kell Moffet… Hog repair….” He spat in the general direction of the corner toilet. “They didn’t like me.”
“Good,” Helton bobbed his head slightly, acknowledging the man. “Mechanically inclined people could be handy. They don’t like me… and I don’t like them much, either.” Kell snorted and smiled a lopsided, chip-toothed smile.
“So, you bustin’ us outta this joint or sumpin’?” the youngest punk sitting next to Kell asked.
“Not likely, security looked pretty tight on the way in. Just aim to misbehave after they get us somewhere we can do something… useful.” He looked at the next man over, the one tackled at the restaurant, questioningly.
“Duke Nesbit. Programmer. Work permit expired because I was a little too good at recovering lost data my boss didn’t want undeleted. And I… Are we really getting conscripted?”
Helton smiled widely. “Good to meet you, Duke. I know someone you will want to meet. And yes, most likely.”
Going quickly around the cell getting names and skills, he found a wide range of skills from musician to electrical repair, but only two with military experience. Everyone had been told they were headed for a conscript company, and nobody was in very good physical condition. After the last prisoner introduced himself to the pair, there was an awkward silence as the group waited expectantly for the final two introductions. Helton paused, looking at the reclining Kaminski. “This is Mr. Smith, a man of many talents, including” he glanced at the still unconscious forms, “crowd control. You can call me Mr. Jones. I have other skills. We’re both here on account of a computer mix-up with paperwork.” There was a general wry chuckle at the generic denial of wrong-doing. “It could be worse, and I’m pretty sure things will work themselves out. Not exactly pining for the fjords, yet-” a half-dozen cell-mates make faces or snort skeptically, “but not where any of us would like to be, so let’s not screw things up for ourselves any worse than things already are.”
Chapter III
Piper Mission
Admiral Jan Flicker was in a foul mood. All admirals have to deal with bureaucratic infighting and politics, and though she could hold her own in that arena, she hated it. The new depths of crap she had to wade through made her think it might be time to retire; she’d rather spend her energy fighting real enemies, not domestic turf battles with overblown egomaniacs. She did her best not so sound angry with her subordinates – many of them didn’t like it any more than she did – but her voice had an edge all the same.
“The ‘why’s’ are all political, and they’ve handed this to us hoping we can dig them out of their political problems with a military solution.” She looked around at the seven captains seated at the mission table. The six cruiser captains had various expressions of annoyance and resignation. The carrier captain already knew the situation and was stony-faced and silently professional. “New Medina changed everything, but every politician seems to think it changed it in different ways, and sees every threat as personal, so they are all seeking cover. Cover means more information than anyone else, or more deniability, preferably both.”
Captain Janus of Cruiser Number 6 spoke up first. He was not the youngest, but as the most junior and the newest to the team, his ship having just been assigned to them before they left while the previously assigned cruiser was in for refit, it was surprising. “Why were you, I mean we, handed this? We’re not equipped for recon or assault, we’re slated for system patrol at Geminorum. Being light on marines and heavy on fighters for something like this is stu-... doesn’t seem quite the right force mix, Ma’am.”
Jan smiled a little to herself at his correction. “The official reason is that we are what is available, and we are unlikely to actually have to set foot anywhere.”
Captain Spiritus of Cruiser #1, senior cruiser captain aboard and an old friend, had a more likely piece of speculation on the reason. “The Admiral has rubbed more than a few people at Whitehall the wrong way, and they likely don’t expect us to find anything worth reporting. If we do, we are unlikely to live long enough to land marines. Or anything else. The fact that she and Colonel Lag go way back means that there is a chance she’ll either have a useful insight in stopping him, or finding out what he’s doing.”
Captain Lightfoot of Cruiser #2, always a cautious man who wanted more data, wore his normal worried look. “But wouldn’t command want you there, so they could pick your brain more, gain insights into his movements better?” He was good technically when dealing with the hazards of space and direct combat, but he’d never make admiral with his lack of political insight.
“No. I might make them uncomfortable with my answers.”
“Might? You make a lot of people uncomfortable, Ma’am… Back home, I mean, not here.” Captain Wickard of #5 was a solid ship captain, but another one unlikely to make admiral. Honest and smart, but a little too much of both, at times. The other senior captains chuckled at the bluntly stated truism.
“I thought we were after the Tajemnica. What’s Colonel Lag got to do with this? I mean, I know he was in the battle at New Medina, but he’s Plataean,” asked Janus, looking confused.
Everyone else at the table looked at him silently, not wanting to get in the way of the Admiral’s expected choice words for a captain not able to read a short briefing in the 20 hours they’d had it available to them.
Admiral Flicker’s expression was flat, her words implying a major failure has been noticed. “What, precisely, have you been doing since we transitioned, and how much have you read?”
Janus, inexperienced as a cruiser captain though he may be, recognized the tone, and straightened up perceptibly. “I was overseeing a major power system anomaly investigation and repair, dealing with a crew assignment shortage because four crew were removed from duty for pregnancy leave-“
“Your ship is undermanned because you can’t get them to….? Go on, please.”
”There was also a long range radar array glitch that was hard to test because we can’t activate it in transition, and the third officer was very sick, so I…” Seeing her expression, Janus wisely cut his explanation short. “I only had a chance to skim the summary, Ma’am.”
“You have a second in command for a reason, Captain, you had best learn to use her.”
“W
ell, Ma’am, about that. That was one of the pregnancy leaves. With Number Three in sick bay, I had the Chief Warrant acting XO, and with the head doc-“
“And you were going to tell me about all that exactly when?”
“No excuse, Ma’am. I’ll read it all straight away, and-“
“Any other surprises awaiting me?” she said icily.
“Ah, no, I don’t think so, Ma’am.”
She stared at him with disapproving eyes, then glanced around the table. “Anyone want to fill in acting Captain Janus?” The junior man swallowed hard at her words, but tried to keep his expression neutral. “Neil?” she asked, looking at Carrier Captain Pikaard.
“Tajemnica is an extremely dangerous ship, no doubt. Heavily armed and armored for her size, she’s demonstrated greater acceleration than anything we have, and can transition deeper in a grav well than any ship known. Just how deep is unclear. It is suspected that some portion of a prohibited fully self-aware military AI is operational aboard her.” Janus’s face managed to keep neutral, but his Adams apple bobbed up and down as he repeatedly swallowed with a suddenly very dry mouth. “But the captain aboard her is an unknown, someone almost totally off our radar until he showed up at Dustbowl with some sort of supernuke and that ship, where he pulled off a couple of miracles even though his military background is as an undistinguished infantry corporal, someone we’d never expect to amount to anything. Record search shows a minor encounter months ago at Emirate, recorded at long range and ignored at the time.
“But Colonel Lag and the Admiral met years ago, during her first command on a twelve-man scout. She hired him to help solve a problem. They’ve worked together a couple of times since. He’s a seriously strategic thinker, usually a couple steps ahead of everyone else in the room, never lost a fight that we know of. Whitehall thinks he’s the mastermind behind this mess, and he and Tajemnica’s captain have been working together. But he’s not a normal power-player looking for the typical fame-wealth-power payoff, so they can’t figure him out, and are sure the reasons he’s given are a cover for something bigger, more sinister. Frankly, for someone as cheerful as he is, he scares the crap out of an awful lot of people. Just sees the world differently than we do. He does all kinds of small unit actions, crops up in strange places. I’ve seen him walk into an op that had been worked on for years getting nowhere, and using ten men and two weeks he upends everything and walks away with a solution, a paycheck, and friends for life. Three guys or three thousand, don’t let his nominal rank fool you. They hope the Admiral can unlock the puzzle. If she can’t, at least she’s not around to embarrass them.” He glanced over to his superior for a moment. “If I might be so bold as to read between the lines?” She nodded for him to continue. “They would likely be perfectly happy if she didn’t come back at all.”
